ING Direct 2002 Annual Report Download - page 6

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Annual Report 2002 · ING Group 3
Message from the chairman
custody services. In China, ING Investment Management won approval for a fund joint venture and
became the first foreign mutual fund company to start operations in this country.
Reliable partner
Trust is vital in financial services. Consumers emphasise security and reliability in selecting partners
to handle their financial affairs. ING has been such a partner to millions of people for more than 150
years. Our goal is to remain a strong, dependable financial services provider under all circumstances.
So, when adverse market developments affect our capital base, such as last year, our clients and
business partners can rely on us to do what is necessary to maintain our financial strength.
Although our capital base remained well above the legally required margins, we took a
number of measures to reinforce it. They included the issue of EUR 1.1 billion perpetuals, the
re-introduction of optional stock/cash dividend, the sale of EUR 650 million worth of ING shares that
served to hedge employee stock options and a better allocation of capital.
Focus on core business
In the next few years, our focus will be to continue to build our business for the future and further
improve what we have. We will focus on our core activities, clients and countries. In other words:
what we do well, we will try to do even better. We will sell, discontinue or reorganise businesses that
structurally fail to meet our performance requirements or that are sub-scale. And we will exit
countries and business lines that offer insufficient growth prospects. Maximising our performance is
a pre-requisite for continued profit growth as well as for improving our ratings.
A powerful global brand will help us to distinguish ourselves both in the retail and wholesale
markets. We made tremendous progress last year in re-branding most of our labels to ING and in
positioning ING as a reliable and innovative financial services provider.
No more automatic increase in capital gains
Capital is scarce, so we will invest it where the best return can be made, based on a careful evaluation
of risk and reward. We discontinued our policy of automatically increasing the capital gains from
equities by 15% each year. The realisation of capital gains from equities (and real estate) will from
now on be determined on the basis of actual market developments.


Ewald Kist, chairman of the
Executive Board, in front of
ING’s new headquarters in
Amsterdam, the work place
for 400 employees of ING’s
Corporate Centre.
“This unique building, made
of glass and steel, symbolises
the innovation and
transparency we aim for in
our financial services.”