More profit, less jobs for Internationale Nederlandern

Internationale Nederlandern Group (ING) of Holland on Wednesday reported a rise in underlying profit in 2013 and a further 300 job cuts. Throughout 2013 the Dutch bank and insurer's underlying net earnings rose 22.2 percent to 3.26 billion euros (4.45 billion U.S. dollars), compared to 3.63 billion dollars in 2012. The full year net result fell 22.3 percent from 5.68 billion dollars in 2012 to 4.41 billion in 2013; however, the 2012 result included significant abnormal gains from the sale of businesses. For the same reason, ING recorded a lower profit in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to the same period last year. ING realized a net profit of 735.75 million dollars in Q4 of 2013, compared to 2.02 billion dollars a year earlier (down 63.6 percent). The underlying net result in the final quarter of 2013 was 522.84 million dollars, compared to 222.5 million dollars in 2012 (up 148.4 percent) The underlying profit from banking activities tripled in the last three months of 2013 to 1.2 billion dollars, compared to 386 million dollars in the previous year. The insurance division result increased 13.2 percent to 400 million dollars in Q4. "ING Group had a successful year in 2013, delivering an improved financial result while making significant progress on our transformation," CEO Ralph Hamers said. "The improvement was driven by a solid performance at ING Bank as well as an improved operating result for the ongoing business at ING Insurance." In addition, ING announced it would cut an additional 300 jobs in its Dutch banking activities, bringing to 4,100 the total job losses since the group started its reorganization in 2012. "We are now within the final phase of our restructuring and have started 2014 as a simpler, stronger and more sustainable company," Hamers said.