ING plans to expand rapidly in both India and China, Asia/Pacific board member Alexander Rinnooy Kan said last week. “We are trying to expand as rapidly as we can,” he told analysts at an investor relations session on Friday. Rinnooy Kan also said that ING did not want to enter any new countries in the Asia/Pacific region at the moment.
ING announced last month that it would take a stake of up to 19.9 percent in Bank of Beijing, its biggest investment so far in China. The Dutch group already has an insurance joint venture with Beijing Capital Group and an asset management joint venture with China Merchants Securities. In India ING has a banking partnership, ING Vysya Bank.
At the same conference, ING Chief Executive Michel Tilmant reiterated that the group’s non-life insurance activities were up for disposal. Tilmant added that ING would retain non-life operations in countries where they were necessary to have a market presence or where they offered value – such as Canada, where ING last year acquired the non-life operations of Allianz.