THE DECLINE OF ING

08 October 08
ING Direct, the online banking arm of ING Group, said it was to acquire more than €3bn (£2.7bn) of British deposits from Icelandic online savings providers Icesave and Kaupthing Edge.

19 October 08
The Dutch government announces it is preparing to inject €10bn into the group.

20 October 08
The group says it will sell its Taiwan life insurance unit to Fubon Financial for $600m.

12 November 08
Posted its first ever quarterly loss as impairments on stocks and bonds, counterparty losses and property writedowns eroded its income. The group’s net loss for the third quarter was €478m, after writedowns totalling €1.5bn.

14 January 09
Says it will cut 750 jobs, 7 per cent of its US workforce, as the company looks to cut costs.

26 January 09
ING says it will suffer a loss for 2008 of €1bn, take advantage of €22bn in Dutch state loan guarantees on its troublesome loan portfolio and slash 7,000 jobs. The poor performance also costs chief executive Michael Tilmant his job, replaced by Jan Hommen.

18 February 09
The group posts a fourth-quarter loss of €3.7bn due to mounting writedowns and says it will shrink its focus to core operations and markets.

26 March 09
Ditches plans to apply for a Chinese banking licence and exits one of its joint ventures there.

9 April 09
Plans emerge for the group to make asset disposals worth up to €8bn and limit its focus to Europe.

13 May 09
The bank posts a first-quarter net loss of €793m and reiterates plans to sell of assets.