Dutch banking and financial services corporation ING Bank has reported an underlying net profit of 4.22bn in 2015, up 23.2% year-on-year .
According to the group, the strong performance reflects higher interest results and lower risk costs "despite higher regulatory costs." Regulatory costs increased by 53.3% to 279m.
Underlying income rose by 8.2% year-on-year to 16.55bn, while operating expenses increased to 9.25bn from 8.98bn a year ago.
Positive growth was recorded across both the group’s retail and wholesale banking. ING’s core lending book was 4.2% (21.7bn) higher compared to 2014.
In 2015, ING has introduced its fintech products in more countries and invested in WeLab.
Ralph Hamers, chief executive officer at ING Group said: "In the fourth quarter, Poland introduced Moje ING, a platform which gives customers a comprehensive overview of their finances with the help of an easy-to-use financial planning tool, and is based on a similar system in Spain. Twyp, our app for peer-to-peer payments using telephone numbers, was launched in Spain in December. In the new year we also launched Twyp in the Netherlands and announced an investment in the fintech WeLab, which provides consumer loans in China and Hong Kong in a fully automated process that takes just minutes."
During the year ING completed the divestment of its US insurance unit Voya and "significantly" reduced its stake in Dutch insurer NN Group, which according to Hamers these actions brought the group closer to completing its restructuring.
