Coronavirus

How ING supports you

Our lives and livelihoods have been turned upside down by the virus. Besides concerns about our own health and that of our loved ones, we’re worried about our finances and about social disconnection.

At ING, we feel a responsibility to support our customers, employees and our communities as they navigate through this crisis.

Across our business, we have taken action. We’re empowering customers to remain in charge of their banking and their finances. We’re equipping employees to work from home so they can continue serving our customers, and we’re helping communities to build back better.

Making banking safer and easier

In these unprecedented times we all face uncertainties. The last thing you want to worry about is your daily banking. Therefore, we’ve undertaken the task of ensuring uninterrupted access to call centres, online banking and ATMs. A limited number of branches remain open for those customers who want to visit us in person. We take every precaution to ensure social distancing measures are maintained.

Customers appreciate being able to do their banking through our online channels and make contactless payments to prevent the spread of the virus, as we’ve see by the growing number of digital transactions.

Given the growing economic uncertainty, an even bigger concern may be the ability to pay back your mortgage or other loan, or paying off credit cards. ING has introduced a raft of measures including loan relief (payment holidays), providing expert advice, implementing national debt-relief schemes and supporting companies to alleviate those concerns. We’re proactively reaching out to support our business clients with tailor solutions for their specific circumstances.

Below are just some of the measures introduced worldwide to help customers:

Responding to our communities

ING's empowering purpose also extends into our local communities, where we are providing support in various ways. There are many examples of how ING, our employees and our customers stepped in to help during this crisis. These range from donations and fundraising, to community outreach and support.

In partnership with UNICEF, ING employees, friends and customers raised funds for critical medical and hygiene supplies to help children and vulnerable groups fight the virus. ING pledged to match all donations up to €1 million.

We also established a global ING fund to provide initial disaster relief and in the longer term to help communities build back better by supporting projects in areas such as financial health, sustainable employment and digital skills.

Safeguarding employees

Our employees are at the heart of our business and we rely on them to continue supporting our customers when they need us most. We care about and feel responsible for the wellbeing of our people and are doing everything we can to protect their health and safety.

The majority of our employees are working from home, sometimes under challenging circumstances. To ensure they remain engaged and are fully equipped to do their jobs remotely, we provide tools and guidance for remote working and help them create an optimal work environment. The coronavirus pandemic has also made it necessary to adapt to new ways of working and collaborating. Looking to the 'new normal' of a post-Covid-19 world, we have created global guiding principles that aim to balance the advantages of working from home and working from the office. We will test these in several countries when local health and safety guidelines allow, taking a step-by-step approach that provides a degree of flexibility for local implementation and respects local labour laws.

In addition, our global and local crisis teams make sure we follow the highest health and safety standards. This includes restricting business travel and taking measures to create a safe work environment in our offices and branches, such as social distancing guidelines and limiting the number of people in meeting rooms and common areas. These measures are especially important as we prepare for a careful and phased return to the office once circumstances allow. When this happens will depend on the local situation and the rules and regulations in each ING country. We are constantly assessing the developments.

• Coronavirus: ING's response booklet (PDF 1,2 MB)

You can also read ING’s view on aligning our response to the coronavirus impact with efforts to address ongoing sustainability challenges and build back better (PDF 0,1 MB).