ING is to cut 2,350 jobs

ING, the principal Dutch financial services group, is to cut 2,350 jobs, or 2.5 percent of its workforce, as it prepares to separate its banking and insurance operations in difficult trading conditions.

ING also said it made a third-quarter net profit of 609 million euros ($780 million), compared with a forecast for 872 million.

It is shedding insurance and investment management operations and other assets through disposals or stock market listings as it prepares to repay the state bailout it received in 2008 and bolster its capital.

The group, which employs 94,000 people, said it was to cut 1,350 jobs at its European insurance operations and 1,000 at commercial banking.

ING blamed lower interest rates for a 39% fall in the insurance division’s operating profit to 238 million euro (£191 million).

The job cuts come after Swiss bank UBS announced last month it was to cut 10,000 staff and wind down its fixed income business.

ING last year announced it was to cut 2,700 jobs, or 10 percent of staff, at its Dutch retail banking operations in the face of deteriorating markets, following similar measures at Dutch rivals ABN AMRO and Rabobank.

The Dutch central bank said last year banks were inefficient compared with foreign rivals, and it saw room to cut costs.