ING To Focus On Expanding In Brazil, Mexico

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

04 April 2008

Global financial services firm, ING Group on Wednesday revealed plans to focus on developing operations in Brazil and Mexico, in order to increase its prominence in the Latin American region.

Introducing ING’s 15th Investor Relations Symposium in Amsterdam, Michel Tilmant, Chief Executive Officer of ING Group, elaborated on ING’s strategic focus, observing that consumer preferences are changing rapidly across the globe, especially in developing markets, and are driving strong growth in savings as well as convergence of financial products.

In a statement, the Group observed that:

"ING is well positioned to capitalise on these trends and capture a larger share of the total savings pool. ING has strong positions in today’s mature markets, a strong presence in the most attractive developing markets, and has the strategic flexibility to enter markets in different ways."

"With its focus on providing banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services to our retail customers, ING can offer the full range of products to meet customers’ needs through their life cycle."

In Latin America, ING has repositioned its business through the acquisition of pension and annuity businesses and divestments of several non-core businesses, it was announced on Wednesday.

The Group went on to reveal that:

"ING is now the second largest pension fund manager in Latin America with access to over 15.0 million customers in seven attractive high growth markets. ING Latin America is well positioned to deliver on ING’s aspirations to become number one in pensions and life insurance and top 5 in investments across Latin America both through organic growth and acquisitions."

"ING's strategy for growth in the region will focus on Brazil and Mexico, as these two countries make up for almost three quarters of the region’s wealth management assets. As banks dominate distribution of wealth management products, ING will seek out alliances and partnerships to distribute its products."

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