ING Groep says it may consider selling banking assets to hasten the repayment of state aid to the Netherlands, which faces delays by new regulatory capital demands and Europe’s debt crisis.
The bank’s priority in the next two years is to repay the Dutch state €3 billion and meet Basel III requirements on capital levels while completing a EU-ordered restructuring, the Amsterdam-based firm said in a statement.
A “further review of non-core assets” in the lender may help speed up repayment, ING said in a presentation posted on its website.
ING received €10 billion of state aid and transferred the risk on €21.6 billion of US mortgage assets to the Dutch government after the 2008 financial crisis.
It has returned €7 billion in aid to date and had set out to complete repayment by May.
“Ideally, we would like to complete the state repayment this year,” chief executive officer Jan Hommen said in the presentation.
“However, given the ongoing crisis in the euro zone and increasing regulatory capital requirements, we need to take a cautious approach and maintain strong capital ratios in the bank as we build towards Basel III.” – (Bloomberg)
