ING announced in May that it will no longer offer Mass Retail Banking services for private individuals in Luxembourg and put increased focus on Wholesale Banking and Private Banking. Prior to this announcement, Andy/Duke met Isabel Frits, head of ING Wholesale Banking Luxembourg and Andrew Bester, member of ING’s Management Board Banking and Global head of Wholesale Banking.

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Which clients are you serving in the wholesale division?

Andrew Bester: At the group level, we focus on the largest companies and funds in the world, across our network covering 40 countries. Our mission is to help them reach their goals throughout their respective activities. For CFOs, this means serving all their treasury needs, from payments to cash management, hedging risks, foreign exchange, and lending. On the funds side, we cover the whole value chain, from creation to liquidation, including payments & cash management, depositary, custody, hedging risks, and prefunding capital calls through structured loans. 

Isabel Frits: When you specifically look at Luxembourg, our core business is clearly investments funds, and we also serve corporations, other banks and insurance companies. We have fewer big corporations here than in other jurisdictions but there are nice gems in Luxembourg as well. When they are headquartered here, the relationship is steered globally from Luxembourg. And if their headquarters are located elsewhere, Luxembourg serves the local needs of our customers while leveraging our global ING banking network. In both cases, our Luxembourg clients benefit from a single point of contact, and they can leverage our deep global expertise in many sectors. One of those is funds management, for which Luxembourg is ING’s global center of expertise.

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How do you help your clients reach their goals? 

Andrew Bester: In today’s world, it is critical for our clients to rely on a robust and high-performing bank like ING. It gives them peace of mind as they can count on us to help them deal with the ever-growing complexity of our world. I have in mind four main challenges: risks – including inflation, geopolitical changes, FX -, regulation, digitization and sustainability. Let me give you an example of risk, from help we’ve given to our clients in the shipping business in the past month. As a result of water shortage in the Panama Canal, many ships needed to be rerouted. Our clients’ CFOs had to reassess the routes of their container ships, mitigate inflation and to reevaluate the hedging of their risks, especially regarding commodities and foreign exchange rates. Sometimes we provided temporary liquidity lines or guarantees that they needed to operate. On the regulatory side, our role is to help our clients always remain compliant. We believe that a well-guided approach creates a safer environment and new opportunities. 

Isabel Frits: On the sustainability side, ING has a strong advantage, being recognized as a sustainability pioneer. In 2017, we were the first bank to issue a sustainability linked loan to a Dutch corporation. This loan helps our clients in their sustainable transition as it takes time to achieve net zero. As a bank, we play our role in this important process by setting specific KPIs – like for instance less CO2, more diversity – which unlock lower interest rates when they are reached. We have also expanded these mechanisms into bonds. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​