Dutch banking group ING is set to lay off 7,000 jobs and invest in its digital platforms with an aim to deliver annual cost savings of €900m by 2021.
A total of 3,500 jobs in Belgium and 2,300 in the Netherlands will be shed as part of the move.
“For the intended workforce reductions, a pre-tax redundancy provision of around EUR 1.1 billion is expected to be booked, of which EUR 1.0 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016,” the bank said.
Meanwhile, the bank also announced intentions to add personnel in areas of growth.
“At the same time, we will add colleagues in parts of our business where we expect to accelerate growth given our plans to continue to attract new customers and increase lending to support the economies we are active in,” the bank said.
ING also unveiled plans to invest €800m in its digital platform. The platform will be initially rolled out to its challenger markets of Spain, Italy, France, Austria and the Czech Republic.
“The platform can be extended to additional countries, products and services. An agile, central IT services centre will develop, maintain and run all needed digital requirements,” the bank said.
