Thank you very much for people on the call as well. I believe you're in listening only, Mark, and we have people here in the room as well from the media here in the Netherlands. I'll say a few words upfront, and then we'll just go into Q&A. So we had good commercial and financial results in 2025. On the customer side, we grew our primary customers quite a bit, so we had over 1 million primary customers in 2025, with 350,000 in the Q4 . And if you now look at the total number of customers, but I'm talking private individuals, obviously, then over 15 million are now primary out of the 41 million that we have. It's not only the number of customers that increased, but also we had higher business volumes.
Lending book in 2025 grew with EUR 57 billion, but that's, that's 8% compared to the previous year. Actually, it was double the lending growth we had in 2024. Clearly, we were a very big one of the bigger lenders in the European economy, and we have EUR 376 billion in mortgages, EUR 140 billion in business banking, EUR 266 billion in wholesale banking. I just give you these numbers because that gives you the size of the lending book. With that, we're also a top three mortgage provider in Europe, at least. Also when we talk about deposits, including savings and current accounts, the total amount of deposits grew in 2025 with EUR 38 billion, that is 6%. In aggregate, our total balances to clients, which is deposit and lending, grew with, on average, about 7%, 8% lending, 6% deposits. Of course, we also continue to attract investment customers.
You know that we want to diversify. We do a lot of lending or everything with interest, but we want to, of course, do more with customers. So we have a balanced, more balanced business profile. And an example of that is investment customers. So now we do, we have a total group of asset management and e-brokerage, normal banking specialists. The question, of course, is, do you do that under your own umbrella, or do you just sell? So asset management is more an asset management term, and more of what we do is just sell or provide access to shares or funds to buy. So that's why we say it's asset management and e-brokerage. It goes at about EUR 278 billion, which was an increase of 60% compared to 2024. So it just shows you that we're growing very fast.
We also come from a relatively small base, so that's why it's also all that we've done so far. And then we go to the income side. So we said customers, business, and then we said income. So interest income over the year was good, so it held up well. Please note that we still had some headwinds from a lower replication volume on the liability side. It went down, and therefore your replication also goes down on the liability side. So we went through the trough mid-year, and now we're getting out of it. That's why you saw, amongst others, doing also lending loans, that we had a 5% growth in the Q4 . So you see that we're coming out of the trough in liability income.
Fee income grew 15%, EUR 1.5 billion-EUR 4.6 billion, all among those investment products, but also in wholesale banking, because we're doing more with lending than those capital market activities, because we went into that diversification there as well. Expenses were under control. That meant 4% higher for the full year, but the Q4 was flat. So still, on the one hand, we need to pay more because of the CLA effects among others, and we invest. And on the other hand, we have operational efficiencies to partially offset that. And the risk costs were in the Q4 , about at the cycle average, but through the year were a little bit below. So it was about 19 basis points, we say, through the cycle. It's about 20 basis points, so up 2%. So that looked good, so nothing funny there.
Then we realized that meant we realized a net profit of EUR 6.3 billion, return on equity 13.2%, capital ratio of 30.1%. Then we have a dividend that we propose for year-end. So we're happy with the results. Of course, financially, but it starts always with the interaction with the customer and how much we have an interaction and think that it's what led to it. Let me stop there, and then we'll just go into all kinds of other things that we can talk about, then only the results. Over in the background.
I can go.
Yeah.
I wanted to ask about your SRT strategy and your growth. EUR 7.5 billion.
Yeah.
To EUR 7.8, EUR 7.5 billion at the end of last year. What can we expect for this year? Can we expect more from both sizes or, like, anything more coming?
Yeah. So we can expect a bit more. So we only started to do that, for the first time last year. There are many banks who already did this for many years. But it also had to do with the fact that we had to make our models ready. So, when we got under the supervision of the ECB, we came out of a regime that was more they, what we would call expert-based models, went to data-driven models. And you see that with, among others, banks who have their head office in the Netherlands, that we all had to improve our models. We all had to do it in Europe, but I think that the Dutch banks in particular had to make the models more data-driven and less only expert-based. And that took quite a number of years for that.
You need data. And when you're ready, you can then also be more precise about which part of that portfolio can you then sell and what does that mean in having lower capital. But if you don't know what the exact capital base is for that particular loan, you can also say, "Oh, I'm taking that loan off my book in there, so I take that capital off my book." Because then the supervisor says, "I don't know whether that's the capital that you can take off your book." So now we speak the same language in terms of what we sell. It's also clear how much capital release you then get. And therefore, we started with this for the first time now last year in November when we did 2 of these, but we will continue to do that in 2026 and beyond.
And we said that the impact of these trades in 2025 was, what, 12 basis points and 0.2% on our CET1 release. And therefore we have more room. And this year we expect that the trades that we will do will release 15-20 basis points, 0.15%-0.20% in 2026. And then we're gradually developing that muscle. It's also, by the way, and we also are going to develop that muscle in retail as well. I don't expect many of these trades to happen in retail because it's always a balance between risk return, what you keep, and risk return, what you sell, right? And the risk return in retail is very good. So if you sell it, you also sell a return. So you try to do it there where someone else likes to return better.
We like to return less, and you can play with it in the market. It also, especially in this day and age, so you see higher growth. We see higher lending growth and higher deposit growth. With that growth, you also need the ability to grow because that growth comes with capital. That also means that you want to have more flexibility to also have a valve that you can release capital so that you continue to grow with customers. If at some time you're full and the customer comes and says, "Well, I'm sorry, I'm full," because, "Yeah, but I want to do a loan with you," but not with us, mate. Go to the next door. So that's why we have always been very much a credit-driven bank.
So we sell with NPIs, and we keep the cash flows, and we keep the non-balance sheet. But that also has its limitations because at some point, if the growth in the market is faster, you cannot respond to the demands of the market because you say, "Well, I can't grow any faster because my capital's already full." That's why it's also good to trade a little bit.
You said that Dutch banks are, as far as other European banks, in changing the risk models from expert to data? Could you explain?
Yeah. So what you typically saw after the ECB came in, the ECB works well with data-driven supply. So, in the past, there was a joke that when it come to a central bank, and they said, "So what's your loss given default on shipping?" So if you lose a ship, what's your loss? It's the LGD loss given default. Well, with the ship, you have the expert now. You have the expert on shipping. I looked at him. He's old and gray. He has 30 years of shipping experience. "So, Tanate, what do you think?" And they say, "Well, I would say 20%, 20%." I'm like, "Oh, wow, 20%." So based on that, I'm simplifying the point. You then let people say, "Okay, so in that shipping portfolio, when you lose a ship, you lose 20% of the loan." And why is that?
Because the old and gray expert says, based on his decades of experience, and that's why I went this way.
I don't know.
He is, he is looking happy-eyed as well.
He's thinking of his retirement. So, but then the ECB came, and the ECB is more data-driven supervision. But if you look at the supervision of more Southern European countries, that was also more data-driven. So the way that the ECB started to supervise was more akin to Southern European countries and more Northern European countries were more expert-based. That's why there were different speeds at which different banks had to chase into the model of the ECB. And if you look at the Dutch banks compared to some, well, that also are more Nordic banks compared to more Southern European banks, we had more only developed models. Where in the South, they had more standardized models. Standardized very, very much the same. They had more data-driven models, but we had more expert-based models. And then we had to converge.
Do you think if the whole market is going to get those SRTs increasing, what do you think as a market risk for the whole financial sector?
Yeah.
Pushing, pushing, you're getting higher leverage. That's what you, what you like.
Yeah. So, the Dutch expression is everything with too for it is not good except for too fed up. So, too much. And that's also the case with an instrument like SRTs. So what the risk transfer does, it transfers the risk. It doesn't transfer the loan. And so the loan is on your balance sheet, but you transfer the risk with it, and you transfer what they call a first loss piece, so you can calculate how much the initial loss will be that you transfer. And therefore your capital goes down, right? But it's not the Holy Grail, but because it means that someone takes that risk, right?
If the loan expires and we extend the loan, we go again back to this person and say, "You still want to have that SRT with us?" It's, "Yeah, yeah, sure." I will do it again, right? And so as long as that works, it's progressive mobility. But if the music stops, you get the loan back on your balance sheet. So if the guy or girl there says, "Sorry, we're full," or, "We don't want to do that anymore," or something, but what we're doing is, "Well, sorry, you have to take it back." So with these instruments, you always need to make sure that what is the market capacity, never make yourself dependent on one instrument only. And it's like everything with a bank is always about diversification.
Diversification of risk in portfolios, countries, type of businesses, but also diversification of, how do you call that? Insurance instruments, SRTs, CPRI, which is insurance, ECAs, or export credit agencies. You also there need to diversify to make sure that you're not dependent on one element when there is a market dislocation, and therefore the whole market says, "Freeze," right? And then everything comes back to, in this case, to your balance sheet. So then you need always to balance that. Now, if you look at ING, we're only starting. And so we are, if you look at the, there's reports of brokers that look at how much SRTs the European big banks have been doing, and you see amounts, amounts, amounts, amounts, and all the way on the right-hand side, you see the Dutch banks.
That is, does it in itself pose a big risk for ING? No. But we're always cognizant of if this goes too far, what does that do?
It's a, it's a product. Is it basically with expert-based models or expert with the data?
Expert, yeah.
Expert, okay.
No, no, no. So.
Trying to understand what?
Yeah. Because those experts, they know best how it works. But if you didn't ask the experts, "So do you have data to substantiate that?" The expert said, "Oh, I mean, look at me. 30 years of experience. What do you want?" So.
Probably.
You write something about the investment product offering. Could you maybe paint some color on that in the different countries you work on, and on the success in the different countries you work?
Yeah. Okay. So, I think maybe let me go back to, let's say, ING Direct because we started ING Direct 25 years ago, and then we basically said the concept of, let's say, a Postbank, there was then a telephone bank in the 1980s, and then it gradually became a digital bank. We said that there always also seems a need for that in other countries, our predecessors said. That's why we started to go in these other markets because there were no banks with no branches and just digital. And we said, "Well, apparently there's a lot of demands for it because many people don't want to go anymore to a branch." And then the focus was, "Let's just do savings." So we are the other bank, and we are not their first bank.
We are the other bank. So if you have additional money and you don't know what to do with it, open an account with ING. It's going to be very low price. It's going to be simple. It's going to be a very simple bank, not too difficult, and all these contracts. It's going to be a few clicks on the app. We're going to make a good app. And you just put in the saving. We give you good rates. And then we are going to invest that saving in our replication portfolios, and we also make a good rate in every way. Now, that, that, that worked very well in a number of markets, and some markets it did not, and with the financial crisis, they sell some countries, but in a number of markets it worked very well.
At some point, of course, then, in the retail side, a very important thing happened, which is the financial crisis hit. And what did that mean? Is that the interest rates went down and became at some point even negative, and the long-term interest rate became equal to the interest rate curve came flat. So that, that business model, if you're a very one-trick pony, doesn't then work anymore, at least not in that period. It didn't really work for 10 years, huh? From 2013 on, when their interest rates became low and negative in 2021, 2022, if you would say at that point, "Shall we start a business model and then do this with saving?" Everyone said, "This is very bad business model." And so and it's that we already had it for a long time, and of course, gradually it comes in.
But it shows the weakness of that business model. And so we said, "Look, we are growing up. We need to become more of a impactful." That's why we talk about impact and relevance. We really need to become a main bank for the customers. Yes, primary customer, but really become a main bank. In that setting, all these 10 retail banks that we kept, eventually, so 9 of them in Europe and 1 in Australia, we all the concept was all the same. So it's all orange. It's all lion. It's all the marketing. It's all the savings. It's all digital only, blah, blah, blah. First, the concept was the same, but how they build it, we said, "No, just do." So the entrepreneurship was very important. You know the local market best.
We can't see this from this market that you do it in the best possible way. You, you tell us how you do it. I mean, look at the total rates , the way we once talked about. This company says, "Yeah, the core rate here is lower." They look at other markets for a rate, core rate plus fidelity premium, or they work with longer-term rates. Every market works a bit differently. It also goes for how do you employ your bank. So same in concept, different execution. So also when we start investment products, then we say, "Okay, let's then diversify. Let's open not only savings account but also current account." Because when you have a current account, then people put their salary on it, and then you do main business with it. Or let's do mortgages or let's do investments.
But the way we developed it in all the markets was just different. We said, "Okay, you need a different icon on your app. We have a different infrastructure platform behind it. We have a different provider of these assets because we don't typically provide that. We just sell it." So BlackRock and Goldman Sachs and Architas and all these. You know, there's the French one, Amundi. And so we have, they have the product. We say, "Well, we want to package it for these types of customers." Then they will do that, and then we are the distributor of it. In every market, we need a different way. In every market, a different investment platform, so physical infrastructure platform. In every market, a different execution agent. Someone has to do these trades. And different markets, different reporting.
So then you would say, "Well, can I then see an overview of this?" Sure. In every market, you do it differently. So why not? And so only gradually, so where we now really say, "Guys, we really need to diversify," there was also a cultural shift in the bank. We said, "Hey, that's funny. You can these days also buy one infrastructure platform. It can be just one. We've done that. It can be one execution agent. You can do one same of reporting." So we moved to much more scalability in, in this product. So that's and then I come back to your answer. Then markets work also differently in terms of is it more just so, so the second thing that we, we did is that we were largely only doing what we call execution only, what we, what they call brokerage.
We said, "Well, here's the app, and, you want to invest? Well, go to the app. You can invest." And we have a number of funds and bonds and God knows what. And so good luck with it. But then people come in and say, "Oh, but I want to have my, my, my father passed away. He has a house, and there was also a portfolio. And I want advice." Advice? "No, no. Go to the app. Three clicks. You can invest." And so for many people, they said, "Yeah, but, but I, I have more bespoke needs than just simple." ING was built on the Postbank. Simple, easy. Everything the same. Man, no frills, no frills.
But if you move up into the investment space, and nowadays you see many more people do that because the pensions can't cope with it anymore, more people say, "Yeah, but only investing and getting an app for me is not enough. I need some type of advice depending on my situation." So we also need to move up. So initially, we very much focused on distribution brokers only, going to the app, and increasingly we need to move up in terms of more bespoke for different customer segments. If you look at the markets where we are the biggest, in Germany, we're very big. And so of the 5 million customers, we're quite big in Germany, and we're growing. We're quite big in Belgium. We're quite successful in Spain, and we're now growing in Italy and the Netherlands. And it's horses for courses.
What do I mean with that? Why were we in Germany so successful? Because the ING is being seen as a very good digital bank and really differentiates itself from other banks being the digital bank in the German market. And therefore, when people said, "Well, I want to invest in an easy way," ING was digital. So the reason why people started to work with ING in the first place was because of that digital element. The same is the case in Spain. In Belgium, people invest typically much more. So, it's much more in the genes of the people to invest. You know the saying, huh? There are people born poor and die rich because of our pension system. In Belgium, people are being born rich and dying poor because they spend more. So there's a difference.
The wealth is divided in different ways. So there's different ways to invest to do things. So they invest earlier to save for a rainy day. And therefore, Belgium is, of course, also a big investment market. But gradually you see also in markets like the Netherlands that it is growing because people do see, "Okay, we have a lot of savings." Savings rates are relatively low. The inflation has come down, but people have seen what it does if inflation gets higher for a long period. People see that the pension systems are changing. And I think that has been a conservative stance of many countries in Europe. We need to also realize it's good to be conservative and risk-minded, but it comes at a price.
We need to see how we balance that with balanced long-term savings and investments in different markets. That's why you see different speeds in different markets.
You say that in Germany and Spain, ING is still the digital bank. I saw some reports that maybe ING is also maybe an incumbent if you, if you look at Revolut or other banks like Revolut. Do you notice that Revolut has a big uptake in Gen Z? And is that a risk for you?
Yeah. I think that we compete with all kinds of comparators. So, indeed, I mean, I think 25 years ago, although the term neobank did not exist as yet, but then ING was basically the neobank. If that word would be there because we were the first one to introduce digital easy instant services, no branches. And we kept it very small service. So we said, "Let's do it simple. Not all kinds of B products in the market. We just do only one or two products." So that's for those particular products you go to ING, not for everything else because that is then we complicate the bank. I just told you a story that we had to complicate the bank because we at some point had to say, "We're now too big.
We need to do something else." But we make ourselves independent. So we compete with incumbents that are more branch-based models that move to digital, and we compete with new neobanks that are either focused on international payments, FX like Revolut, or doing investments like Trade Republic or N26. So they all do the same as we did. They carve out a niche. They become very good at that niche. They roll out that niche in many markets, and then they dig. Our challenge is to grow up, to get out of, let's say, puberty. That means, and in the meantime, by the way, we built our own legacy. We built our own core banks in different markets, much more digital than other banks have. But still, we have no legacy.
So we are, on the one hand, working on decommissioning that legacy and going to the next step, cloud-based environments, make our core banks much smaller. In the past, the core banks, especially with the IBM mainframe or midrange or whatever it is, 400 systems, I don't even know how they look like, but they just tell me that.
They were big.
They were big.
I saw them in the archive.
Here you go. Yeah, yeah. They're very big. But also, they have anything, everything is cross-relevant: product, service, KYC. And so everything is stitched up. So you can say, "Well, can we just decompartmentalize?" No. No, no. Don't, don't, don't touch it. Everything is linked. So it's almost like spaghetti of some, well, let me not say, some all systems, but you cannot say, "Oh, yeah, that's how they did this," and that no, no, no, no. So as long as you keep that mainframe plus system, you're where you are. We already built most of our core banks on the cloud. So we have big on the cloud. But even in the setup of cloud, at least virtually, we built similar core banks all being virtually but still linked together. The new core banks that we're building are much more simple.
Only product client administration and everything else is modular. Then you can make these things much more global. But that was not how the bank, even virtually, was built in the past. So we are more digital than incumbents. There are things we can learn from the neobanks, like whatever they're doing now. So on the one hand, we have to test the trust of the customer, and we need to retain the agility of the neobanks. That's currently the phase in which we're in.
You can ask follow-up questions.
Yeah.
I read a report.
Yeah.
Just this week.
We all did. It was in the Digital Newspaper.
you wrote it, no?
But what they said,
What that article said.
It's a big challenge. It's in the countries that are more upcoming.
How are more upcoming?
Well, if you look at the countries where banking really used the scale and where ING was like wiped out and was more innovating.
Yeah.
At the moment, it says that you are maybe losing traction a bit in terms of neobanks. I think that's something we're working on.
Sure.
Yeah.
What I was wondering is, how do you have to talk about the differences? And do you share their worries about digital approach in 2019?
Certainly, give it a straight. So you guys write an article, and now you want me to go to your article?
No, not really.
No, no. We're doing a German report.
I want to talk about the report in Germany.
Yeah, yeah. So I think well, let me put it this way. So we are able to grow very quickly. So our growth, if you now look at our growth, has been bigger than the last couple of years. And so I do not see myself constrained in our growth. Our biggest challenge is to deepen and broaden the activities with our customers. So we were in many markets a relatively small bank. So, although you can see that we increased our primary customers from whatever, 40 to 50 million to become the real primary bank, it basically needs, you want to be the number one or number two bank of customers. And in the Netherlands, for example, in retail, we typically use one bank since you have to use wipe away another EUR 30 for another bank, huh?
So that does not make life complicated. In other countries, depending on the country, people use a few more banks typically. Maybe that will change here as well. I don't know. But our challenge is to broaden and deepen the activities with our customers. And at the same time, I think to your point, to also compete with digital innovators. So we need to do two things. First of all, where the experience of the digital innovators is better than ours, we need to close the gap. And you still see that. That's why we talk about that. If you look at our net promoter score in five hours within markets, we're being seen as having the best customer experience in half the markets that we're active in. In other markets, we are top three.
It's not per se about the score, but it's about continuous focus on making your processes easier, more instant, less steps, how the customers perceive it. And I think there we also take, let's say, innovation from the digital innovators because they do things that we said, "Oh, yeah, that we haven't seen before." And what we take from the incumbents is, how do you now convert the relationship that you have and do more business with customers? So, are they challenging? Yes, of course, they're challenging. But the incumbents are also challenging, but on different fields. So do I see growth slow down? No. Do I see that there are serious competitors? Yes.
You think that you will be able to close in the digital, digital clients?
Yeah. Because, I mean, look, it's all about digital. It's all about digital journeys. And so, for example, we introduced a subscription package approach. That's, by the way, not about digital journey. That's more about the approach to market. So a number of these neobanks work with subscription packages. A little bit à la Spotify. So you don't take an account. You just get a subscription package. And if you want this type of Spotify account or whatever, FIFA account, you get these services. If you want more extended services, then you pay this, and then you get that. So they do bundles, if you will.
Now, that's also a different way of, let's say, focusing on subsegments in our markets, but which subsegment wants which service? And remember ING, that we came from that Postbank mentality? It is a one-size-fits-all mentality. So, we want to make things very easy, instant, personal, relevant. But to be honest, that was the mantra. But to be honest, we were very easy and instant, but not necessarily personal, relevant. We just said, like I said with that, not a joke, with that, investment, proposition, "No, it's three clicks. We're the easiest." It's a different type, but it's fine. But I have a specific problem. What's my problem with it? Three clicks.
And so to be much more specific to whether it's Gen Z or affluent or pensioners or expats, and therefore really tailor your service, and for example, also subscription package, it's also what you see with neobanks are doing. They focus on a niche or subsegment that says, "I'm going to be the best in this particular subsegment." And what we need to do is to specify the needs of subsegments in our customer base. That's what we're currently doing to look at that. That's why to do that, to then introduce that. And that's why we have, for example, next to improving our digital journeys, also brought these packages; for example, Romania, we will roll it out in other markets as well.
Yeah. Broadening the packages very much now at Gold Cards as well. In SBs, okay, people, even if it's fine.
Yeah. But that's always the case. So there's always also incumbent banks that are now, look at, some European banks or American banks. They are going to market to go into a retail space and to SME. So it's not only the neobanks. There's continuous competition, and therefore it never stops. It's all about how do I get to the next level of the best customer experience to be ahead of competition? And that didn't stop with becoming a telephone bank. That didn't stop with becoming a bank that had an app. That didn't stop with being a bank that now has most of its processes STP end-to-end. And now people go to the next level and say, "Okay, how do I make my journeys more bespoke?
And how do I use Gen AI to make it even more personable as well? That will continue.
Yeah. Question about, since you touched on Germany, one of the reasons that you're considering the road is, possibly Germany as well, part of the neobanks.
Part of the neobanks. Yeah, I think that so coming back to what Eva asked and the more broader story, so with this ING Direct, we were a very small bank. And also in Germany, when we started, ING-DiBa , or it was Diba at the time, we were a savings bank. So, effectively and gradually moving into a bank with current accounts. Then we moved to mortgages, and then we moved into a bank with a trading account like we now have. But still, if you look at more incumbent operations, which we already started a long time ago, so like in this country and in Belgium, with all the predecessors of ING 100 or some 150 years ago, we became full-fledged banks. So like we have here, for example.
That means that in countries like Germany, we do not have a number of services. By the way, we do have consumer lending, but very much focused on all the issue segments. We don't have SME. That's, by the way, why some of these neobanks go into SME, because SME, especially self-employed, is also very digital. So there's a natural progression from a person who banks with you as an individual to a person who banks with you as a self-employed, business, right? It's the same account, the same processes, and similar KYC. And so it's a natural progression. So therefore, doing credit, consumer credit, but also doing credit or current accounts with self-employed SME, that's why we started a digital SME bank in Germany. I don't think there is a good digital SME bank in Belgium, in Germany.
And that's why we are developing it, because we're good with digital. So we use that angle to actually now say, "Okay, how do we now do this in a very good way for self-employed and SME?" but that takes a long time. And so this morning, in the analyst call, people asked, "Okay, how big is it now compared to others?" But yeah, but we're a.
How big is the SME bank?
In Germany?
Yeah.
Yeah. It's small. And so yeah. So we have a EUR 1.1 trillion balance sheet, so in total in aggregate. We started with zero in SME. And what you then do, you first, especially with self-employed SME, the most important thing for self-employed people is not the lending. It is the current accounts. It's payments. They don't borrow that much. They just want to have a current account. They want to make payments. They want to send invoices to their customers. They need to pay to their suppliers. That's how they start. And of course, when they then make revenue for a longer time, then okay, they get the opportunity also to borrow money. And so, but if you look at the pyramid of mid-corporates, sorry, SME, in terms of number of clients, it starts with self-employed.
I'll just for my own amusement.
White board.
Yeah. So, the self-employed is, let's say, a very big group of clients. They have SME, which is small and medium companies, and they have mid-corporates. So companies until EUR 250 million in revenue. If you look at the revenue, in terms of what they make per customer, it's, of course, very small. And moreover, these ones are more about payments than these ones about payments and lending. These ones are about lending. So these ones, which is a very large group, you need to really serve well in what they do in payments and supply chain and invoicing. And now, that's what we need to do first.
When we look at the growth of number of customers, I think that last year, the third biggest country in which we grew the number of business banking customers was the highest, was the third highest in Germany. So, high growth in number of customers, high growth in deposits. So because they first bring in the deposits because they have an account, right? Then the deposits. And that's where we see that we are growing quickly, but we grow from a very small base.
But what I was just checking out, this was in your NLF in the European Union, when you announced to credit customers.
Oh, yeah, we're going after it. I was wondering. Yeah. So, so it's not in that sense, going to the M&A question. So therefore, if we can accelerate our growth, we will. Private banking or consumer lending or business lending, we will do that because then we can do it a lot quicker because before it becomes sizable, it will take a number of years. We are looking at the number of players, by the way, in many markets. And we haven't gone in a number of these markets to an acquisition because it needs to fit from a cultural point of view. I don't want to disrupt the high autonomous growth that we have because we have very good autonomous growth.
And when you suddenly acquire something, everybody will look inside, "Okay, we now need to restructure and to integrate." It also needs to make sense from a return perspective. So in that context, we're looking at things. And yeah, if that doesn't fit, I'm not going to do it. So it's M&A is not a goal in itself. M&A is a means to an end.
Question. SMEs, on Tuesday, part of this was developed back in June. You, one of the things is, right, for SMEs to have bank pass now?
Yeah.
Is it going to change anything in the next few years?
I don't think it will change substantially. I think that what is important, first of all, I think from a societal point of view, it is important that we as a society, including businesses and government and also banks, think about how do we make sure we take everybody along. And so, the large majority of the country can take well part in society, but there are always parts of society that cannot, and that requires extra care. And I agree with that. So, for example, also if you look at, and that's not per se a banking problem, but banks are also involved in it. If you look at, for example, our digital society, our society is very digital. And Netherlands, for argument's sake, is more digital than a number of other societies, and it brings many, many benefits.
But it also leaves people behind, or there are some people that have more difficulty in becoming a part of the society because they find digital difficult, or they cannot find their way into the system. And therefore, there are all kinds of initiatives to just see, "Okay, do we need to help people offline?" Or, "Can we together educate with other industries and the government, by the way, in how to teach people to become more digital, to make it easier for them, or do teach-ins to, to be, to continue to be part of society?" Same goes for a number of SMEs. How can we make sure that we do not keep people behind? I think that, that, I think, is part of that conversation.
But at the same time, we need to be mindful about is that in this case, as banks, we also have our obligations from, let's say, a neobanks perspective. And the question that we then need to ask for ourselves is, "How do we make sure that we also keep society safe while enabling people to take part?" But in principle, that should be the case.
You mentioned that, right?
There always is. So there is always a question between accessibility, data privacy, and safety. And it's to ponder, it's for politicians to guard that balance and for us to say, to give input on, "Okay, if you make this choice, this will be the consequence. Now it's upon you to weigh those interests to see where you want to be." And I think that's going to be the case here as well.
Do you think that planning process for SMEs will be quicker? Will it be just saying, "But you now have an application," and also they will be in coffee shops or businesses?
Yeah. The coffee shops that this is about, within that, right, there is a question about, "Can you categorically exclude a sector or not?" And I think that, crazily there is a few that deal so well. But why is that?
Because each should judge or audit or get information on each individual client on an individual basis rather than saying, "Well, all people who have these types of companies or all people starting with the letter S, we don't want to have." And so, it comes back to, let's say, sort of a universal service obligation that basically says, "Okay, can therefore you categorically exclude a sector or not?" And at the same time, you then need to answer a question, "Okay, but we do statistically know that there can be more fraud, money laundering, terrorism financing activities taking place because some processes enable that." So that also then does something to the requirements that you have on an AML and fraud prevention perspective. And then within that, I think we are maturing that discussion now in this country.
I think that it's good, which is about, "Let's take one step back. Is what we're trying to do with each other, is it really the right thing? Does that solve anything?" So do I agree that banks have to play their forward-focused role, their gatekeeper role in AML, the Wwft? Of course I do. Do I agree that we should have done more than we did 10 years ago? Of course I do. And then we need to ask, "Are we then what we're doing, is that very effective or not?" Well, not really. So, and that is because we have applied all of us as a society. So the pendulum swung a certain way at some point.
I think we're there now that people say, "Aren't you borrowing clients just for the sake of borrowing clients?" Well, you asked me to. So, so let's now discuss together, and this is not finger-pointing, we need to solve this as banks, the central bank, the lawmakers, the privacy authority. Let's jointly take a step back. And by the way, we do have round tables now with the, with the Minister of Finance and let us say, "Are we doing the right thing? Is this enough risk-based? Should we focus more on more risky elements and spend less time on less risky elements?" And therefore, make sure that what we do, we focus that effort on higher risks and less on lower risks. And will that then be, will we then be completely insular of nothing happening? Of course not. Society, we as a society, we take risks every day.
I mean, if we don't want to have risks, stop driving. So, let's not have cars. But we as a society have taken a conscious choice to take certain risks because that's how we want to live. But I think the balance in this case has become completely insular against money laundering risk that is impossible. And therefore, the best way to actually fight it is focusing on the higher risk. And I think that's a good direction.
Okay. How does society look when they do depend on the UN? Are you in talking with the UN definitely?
Well, we're in the past talking with Milieudefensie. Now, we are more in talks, I guess, through media and the court, in that regard. So Milieudefensie has said that they already two years ago, Milieudefensie said that they will start a court case against ING. A year ago, they filed that court case against ING, and then it took some time, and then we got, of course, their information, and now it is upon us to respond to that. So you see how dragged out these cases are. So, we are about to respond, in the next month or so in terms of the claims that they make next month.
A month?
A month.
What do you mean?
A month, singular.
Okay.
And then the rules are there. And I think, look, in the end, we've said that we want to play our role in having a more sustainable society. So I think that the goals that we have are similar, but I think that we differentiate quite a bit in the way how to get there. And we believe very much that we need to do this in a transitionary path, that we need to do it with clients, that we need to enable clients to take on new technologies that takes time to build economical models, that takes time to make yourself less dependent on fossil fuels. And we can't stop overnight. Yeah, and if that's what people want, that's just impossible, and that's also not realistic.
And if then people say, "Well, we want to have that judgment to be made by courts," well, maybe let it be made by courts. That's one of the ways we can have disagreements, and that's one outlet to have these disagreements to come to fruition. Trust, and again, that's why I want to focus on that. Much more important to focus on how we can help customers. I'm actually quite happy, I mean, with all the geopolitical tension going on, and talks about whether fighting climate change is good or bad, or whether you should invest in windmills or not. And there's all the geopolitical, there's a lot of noise around that.
In the meantime, if you look at our sustainable volume mobilized, which is sustainability logic within ourselves, that we're underwriting or co-underwriting. So let's say it's an indication for activity, rose from about EUR 140 billion to EUR 166 billion this year, which is more than the target we set in 2007, and also in the US. And so I know.
How much is the percentage of that, all your loans?
Well, all our loans are, we have a EUR 750 billion loan book.
750?
But it's not only loans. It is also bonds and financial market transactions.
Yeah.
So you cannot compare that. You can compare it to the right, I don't have that. But let me put it this way. It's, I don't have that because then I need to look at all the FM limits. So I don't know that by heart. But it's quite a significant topic in our conversation with customers. So it's not like, "Oh, side business." Let me give you one example where you can see that it's also because the activities are, for example, renewable energy. So, windmills, solar panels, things for new forms of electricity, batteries, for example, or circular economy like textile that is being reused. So those are all different forms of sustainability.
In terms of renewable energy, which is very much the only element which is about, "Okay, what did you finance on projects that are really about renewable energy, which is solar and wind and hydro and hydrogen?" We made a commitment whereby we said that we want to grow their portfolio from EUR 2.5 billion annually to EUR 7.5 billion per annum by 2025. The figure for 2025 was EUR 9 billion. So we almost quadrupled it. And obviously, we want to do that in a sustainable way so that we also can make money of it. So how do we do it in a way that economically it works also well for the client and for us? So I just showed you that also renewable energy becomes a bigger part of the energy production. And I think that's very good.
I think the biggest challenge remains is how can we get new technologies financed? How can we, in that transition phase, how can we make sure that the entire society facilitates that? For example, contracts for differences, temporary subsidies, sunset dates for certain factories that everybody needs to position at the same time. All those things will help industries to transition. And I see that more is happening. And for us, that's the most important thing because that's about where can you really make the impact? Well, not in court, but with the customers. That's what I find most important.
June, June 2nd.
Coming Tuesday?
Well, one of the elements does have to be coordinated.
Is it also due to?
Yeah.
What?
It's all, it's such a strange thing, Mark.
Yeah.
I'm wondering how does that maybe change your hiring strategy that you expect to get talent in or able to hire consistent talent? What changed in the US bank ? Our ability to get talent in will improve. So, most of the people that work with ING work in operations or in technology. So 60% of our staff works in that. And not even talking about risk management, say, so of tech or tech the STEM studies, if you will. And I think it's good. Look, we want to be very good. We want to be the best European bank. We want to have a we want to be a strong bank. Of that, I want to hire the best talent. And for that, we need to compete in the market.
To be able to compete in the market, I want to be able to compete with, not with our hands tied behind our back. That means that when we hire a significant amount of our staff, we compete with technology companies, operational companies, whereby people say, "I want to have a very good international experience, and I want to see how one of the elements that I want, which is a decent compensation, also I can compare with our players." Currently, they say, "We can't." Can you explain to me all that integrale vitalisering ? So, yeah. I think this is a good direction that we take because it helps us in hiring better talent and retaining more talent.
Maybe the next one, when WNT is like, how much do you pay your bank chief instead of, like, the CEO?
I think it's variable pay.
Yeah. You heard, okay. Yeah. Look, I mean, the question is always, do people believe in variable pay or not? Is that a good instrument to motivate people or not? But clearly, if you are in a situation whereby you want to compete with other organizations for talent, you want to have flexibility in how you structure also a payment package. And when you say, "Well, others have more options and we have only limited options," that is limiting you. And it's quite unconvincing to go to someone, "Well, but if you work for ING, you just earn less." They say, "Well, then we need to structure it differently." And there, there's only one way. And let's be honest. We can't say to someone, "No, no, come here.
Don't work for ING, but you just get less because we have a different remuneration system." They say, "Well, then you, you guys structure your remuneration system differently, no? Or you pay me more fixed." So, of course, it gives you also more flexibility. And by the way, it gives you also more direct performance measures with the variable pay. But I think it's more important that we get more flexibility in how we can attract talent.
I had a question about defense exposure. Is ING looking at increasing that? That you're doing in the market we are in today.
Yeah.
Are you also hiring or adding people to help you guys plan?
First of all, the answer is yes. We're growing quite quickly in our defense exposure. Again, there are different speeds in different markets in Europe. Poland, for example, has gone very quickly.
Maybe I have any pages or?
Oh, our exposure is at least EUR 2 billion. We have grown.
That's good.
Well, we have, since a year ago, since 2 years, from almost 0, we now have between 40 and 50 projects in the pipeline.
On each of these projects, I knew exposure is about EUR 2 billion when you say.
EUR 2 billion from almost nothing.
2 billion, like below 10 or? If you can get that number.
Well, coming from zero.
I think.
Anything is very, very high single digit. If you come from almost zero, then a few EUR billion is, right?
Sure.
So what you see is that some countries are quicker. That can have something to do with that geographical location. If you're further away from where the action is, you may think that you are living in more relative safety than other parts of Europe. Some markets also have more structure for that. So in some markets, the defense companies are owned by the state. And therefore, it makes it more that they're quicker to act. So we need to defend our country through our own defense companies, which we own, that we then also guarantee. And in some markets, there's more juggling around, "Oh, how do we structure this? How do we pay for this? How do we collaborate?" And it takes longer. Look, we are a European bank. We want to help Europe to build up.
So the European societies want to build up their defense capabilities. We are a sizable European bank, and we want to help with that within the limits, of course, of the UN limitations that we adhere to. So, no phosphorus and no conventional weapons, so that we stay away from. But other than that, we want to help with that.
In terms of resources, is the bank doing anything differently?
Yeah. Well, we have a so when we said we were really going to it was actually, funnily enough, it was the FD who reported this out a few years ago. Yeah. I know. Incredible. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't want to say that.
I really like my colleagues. That's no problem.
Yeah. So there was a big societal change a few years ago. And there was a meeting with the redacteur Het FD that was there. And then some of your guys asked the question, "So why don't you do?" Some guys are complaining about you're not doing so much about defense. I was like, "What?" So that I'd never heard that question. Then, of course, we started to investigate. Okay. There's a clear demand for it. And our policies, policies as such may not restrict us so much. But the way we have used those policies for the last decades, if you do so little, start to be more to do something, "Well, let's not do it unless." So, "We don't do this. We don't do this.
And if someone comes, we need to go to this road or so." You build sort of a collective memory not to do it unless there is an absolute need. And at some point, it clogs up the system. So you need to really start with the top from the top. We're open. We need to just talk about policies. So let's make clear what is possible rather than writing down what is not possible. So right away that you write about it. And we also then build up a sector expertise because that's now really focusing because you need to build up sector expertise to understand, well, what are they buying or what are the structures. And if you talk about new technologies about drones or protection gear, what is that then? And who then buys that?
What is the business model of that? You need to understand what this is actually about. And how can you collaborate then between governments and export credit agencies and guarantee providers? How can we do that in an ecosystem? It's like with transition finance, it's new technologies basically, to understand how does it all work? And that sector of expertise sits in France.
How many people?
Well, it's only a few people, but those people sit there. But then in each country, we also have a dedicated people who also then only focus on defense. And gradually, that ecosystem builds up that capability. The same as with TMT or with infrastructure or real estate. You start with a small group. Each of the countries which you're active, you also have a person to act. And gradually, you build up a collective knowledge. And then you write sector policies. And based on those sector policies, you get the ING world to act. So, why is there France? Because France has a more pronounced defense industry. So there are people who by nature know more about defense than people in other countries. Of judgment, just sheer knowledge of the country about defense.
Any last questions?
Thank you.
Thank you.