ING announced today that it has finalised the previously announced agreement in principle to make ING’s closed Defined Benefits (DB) Pension Plan in the Netherlands financially independent. The finalisation of the agreement releases ING from all future financial obligations arising out of this plan.

The finalisation follows the acceptance of the agreement by the trade unions (CNV Dienstenbond, FNV Finance and De Unie) and their members, the Central Works Council, the Association of Retired ING Employees (VSI) and by the ING Pension Fund following the positive advice of the Participants Council. The agreement in principle was previously announced on 9 January 2014.

As previously announced, as of the finalisation of the agreement, the Dutch DB Plan has ceased to be accounted for as a defined benefit plan and the Pension Asset related to this plan has accordingly been removed from ING’s balance sheet. The after-tax P&L impact of the agreement is approximately EUR -1.1 billion, compared with the estimated EUR -1.2 billion announced on 9 January 2014. The decrease is mainly due to changes in interest and equity markets which reduced the value of the net pension asset. Of this P&L impact, EUR -0.7 billion has been attributed to ING Bank and EUR -0.4 billion to ING Insurance. The impact of this agreement on the capital ratios of ING Bank and on the IGD ratio of ING Insurance are unchanged from the previous announcement.

The financial impact will be reflected as a special item in ING Group’s First Quarter 2014 results.