ING Group

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The ING Group traces its roots to two major insurance companies in the Netherlands and the banking services of the Dutch government. Its oldest predecessor was the burial fund Kooger Doodenbos, founded in 1743 in Koog aan de Zaan in North Holland, by nine local men. They declared they were entering into a contract 'for the collection and deposit of funds, which are to be used for a proper burial of the partners of the said contract'. Through a series of further mergers, it eventually became part of Nationale-Nederlanden. The insurance branch began with the fire insurance company Assurantie Maatschappij tegen Brandschade de Nederlanden van 1845, founded on 12 April 1845 as approved by King Willem II, and the life insurance company Nationale Levensverzekerings Bank, founded in 1863 in Rotterdam. The two firms merged on 3 April 1963 to form Nationale-Nederlanden, combining the country's largest insurer with its second-largest. The new group expanded significantly internationally during the 1970s and 1980s, introducing its iconic orange N logo in 1970.

Reader's Guide

The banking branch originated with the Rijkspostspaarbank in April 1881, created to provide savings opportunities to the broad Dutch population by leveraging the post-office network into a postal savings system. The Gemeentegiro Amsterdam (GGA) was established around 1916 to centralize Amsterdam's municipal cash transactions, opening to private individuals in 1918. In 1918, the Postcheque- en Girodienst (PCGD) was established as part of the state telecommunication company PTT, creating the Netherlands' first national giro-based payment services. In 1986, the Rijkspostspaarbank and the PCGD were combined to form Postbank, which had more than 7.5 million private account holders and introduced Girotel, the first electronic home banking system in the Netherlands. In 1989, Postbank merged with the Nederlandsche Middenstands Bank (NMB) to form NMB Postbank Groep. In 1991, the banking business of NMB Postbank Groep and the insurance business of Nationale-Nederlanden were merged to create the ING Group, completed on 4 March 1991, made possible by the liberalization of Dutch financial law in 1990 which permitted cross-ownership between banking and insurance institutions. The newly formed group adopted a bancassurance model, distributing Nationale-Nederlanden's insurance products through Postbank's extensive retail deposit base. ING has since grown through major acquisitions, including Bank Brussels Lambert in 1997 (bid valued at US$4.68 billion, European Commission clearance granted in January 1998), and Aetna's financial services and international units in 2000 (for US$7.7 billion).

Did You Know?

• ING is an abbreviation of Internationale Nederlanden Groep (lit. 'International Netherlands Group').
• The ING's logo alludes to Dutch symbolism used by several of ING's corporate predecessors, including Postbank; its original blue lion symbol was refreshed in 2000, and later replaced by the orange variant between 2007 and 2009.
• In 1961, the Gemeentegiro Amsterdam became the first bank in the Netherlands to issue plastic payment cards (giropassen), and in 1969 it introduced the country's first automated teller machine, installed in Amsterdam's newly built district Bijlmermeer.
• In 1965, the Postcheque- en Girodienst became the first fully automated giro system in the world.
• As of the first quarter of 2026, ING served 40.8 million customers across nine retail markets and a wider wholesale banking footprint.