Dutch bank ING, weighed down by losses, withdraws from the online bank
. Three candidates wish to take over their portfolio of clients.
The online banking industry has suffered mechanically and almost naturally since its inception. Dutch bank ING has had enough of paying the price and finally announced on Tuesday its withdrawal from the online banking market in France. The company had been reflecting since June on this possibility, which is now a reality. Hundreds of jobs will be cut, and three buyers, including Boursorama, the only slightly profitable online player, are candidates to take over its portfolio. Let’s see it all.
More than 20 years later, ING says “stop” in France
ING (Wholesale Banking) launched its activity in France in 2000. Since then, the Dutch company has built up a nice portfolio of around 1 million customers, being the leader of the French market until 2016. It offered various services such as the current account, mortgage, consumer credit, but also savings and investment products.
The Dutch online bank, which was also the first of its kind to land in France, managed to convince with a very attractive savings account, and its development in France will have been followed by effects, since it will have inspired ‘other banking players to get started online. But, from an economic and entrepreneurial point of view, its activity will have been a failure on the whole line.
If ING has undoubtedly contributed to modernizing the banking sector in France, its end of activity comes to complete a story of twenty-one years of financial losses. The company will never have succeeded in being profitable over time. The low interest rate and the current economic context will obviously not have helped to improve its finances. The outcome was therefore inevitable.
Boursorama, Crédit mutuel Arkéa and Crédit Mutuel Alliance Federal, candidates for the takeover
ING’s renunciation of online banking in France has several consequences. The first obviously concerns its workforce. If the French branch of the Dutch firm has 700 employees, the group has announced the upcoming implementation of a job protection plan (PSE) which should concern, according to its statements, ” around 460 job cuts “. Employees should gradually leave the company from next March.
Until then, bank executives have another complex task to deal with. What to do with the million customers who made up its portfolio? If, for the moment, no official information has filtered on this subject, we now know that three banks are in the ranks: Boursorama, the online subsidiary of Société Générale, exception of success in the online banking market and favorite for the takeover of at least some of the customers; Crédit Mutuel Arkéa; and Crédit Mutuel Alliance Federal, which for its part did not submit an offer, but only expressed an interest.
Boursorama, 3 million customers on the counter, seems to be the best positioned. She would even be ready to recover the portfolio in its entirety, that is to say, current accounts, savings, life insurance, except mortgage loans, which she does not want at this stage. To be continued.
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The neobank Revolut launches in France
Sources: Le Monde, Press release
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