Dutch lender ING sees net profit bounce back

Top Dutch bank ING said Thursday net profit bounced back by half for the first quarter of 2021 to more than one billion euros ($1.2 billion) on the back of economic recovery.

Driven by a more fees and lower risk costs, the Amsterdam-based ING posted a net result of 1,005 bn euros, up 50 percent year-on-year from 2020.

“ING delivered a strong performance in the first quarter of 2021,” its chief executive Steven van Rijswijk said.

“The sharp rebound in net profit compared to the year-earlier period was driven by a good increase in fee income and lower risk costs,” said Van Rijswijk said in a statement.

Total income was also up by 4.2 percent from 4.5 billion euros to 4.7 billion euros, ING said in a statement.

The good results also came backed by Europe’s so-called targeted longer-term refinancing operations, a Eurosystem move that provides financing to credit institutions, ING said.

Introduced since mid-2014, with the latest in 2019 called the TLTRO III, the operation regulates the amount banks can borrow, linked to their loans to non-financial corporations and households.

“Excluding the TLTRO III benefit, net interest income would have declined by 221 million euros compared with the first quarter of 2020,” ING said.

But “ING’s lending franchise demonstrated its strength in the first quarter, including through our success in converting European Central Bank TLTRO financing into lending to benefit our customers as they continue to deal with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, thereby supporting the recovery,” Van Rijswijk said.

Hit hard by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic ING posted a 48 percent net profit slump for 2020 in February.

It earlier announced it was shedding 1,000 jobs by the end of 2021 and was closing offices in South America and Asia as the coronavirus pandemic batters the global economy.

ING is the Netherlands’ number one bank, employing some 53,000 people in more than 40 countries.