[SINGAPORE] Dutch lender ING is accelerating efforts to build up its fee-based revenue amid the prospect of lower interest rates.
In Singapore, that means deeper investments in capital markets and advisory, and in transaction services.
“We’ve made some senior hires here in Singapore across both of those businesses; both across leadership and the levels below,” said managing director and Singapore country manager Anand Sachdev.
“The intent here is to leverage the strength of our balance sheet and our lending franchise, to then offer these capital markets advisory and transaction services products, and increase fee income growth – (reducing) our reliance on net interest income,” he said.
In Singapore, ING’s capital markets and advisory division includes debt capital markets, acquisition finance, corporate finance and loan syndication. The transaction services business covers trade finance, cash management and supply chain finance.
Strengthening these capabilities is one of three priorities for the Dutch multinational’s operations in Singapore, Sachdev told The Business Times in a recent interview.
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For the first quarter ended Mar 31, 2025, ING posted a net profit of 1.46 billion euros (S$2.19 billion), down 7.8 per cent from a year ago.
Net interest income slipped 5.3 per cent to 3.6 billion euros, but was partly offset by stronger fee and commission income, which rose 9.6 per cent to 1.1 billion euros.
Harnessing AI
The bank’s two other priorities in Singapore – which serves as its Asia-Pacific (Apac) headquarters – are to accelerate digital innovation, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI), and to push further on sustainability by supporting clients in their green transition.
AI is having a “huge positive impact” on banking in general, but it is on its own “not a silver bullet”, noted Sachdev.
“Trying to inject AI into fragmented and inefficient processes, on its own, is not going to solve complex problems,” he said.
Instead, ING is using AI to “marry up business and customer needs with technology, data and advanced analytics”, he added.
One example is ESG.X, an online tool developed in-house in 2023. It collects and assesses the publicly disclosed climate transition plans of ING’s wholesale banking clients.
The tool consolidates data from public databases and sustainability reports to produce a climate transition score for each client. This score reflects the maturity of a client’s climate transition disclosures, based on publicly available information.
As at end-2024, ESG.X had been used to assess the transition plans of around 2,000 clients. These scores are now factored into ING’s internal risk assessment and transaction approval processes.
“Using that, we are really driving the conversation with our clients on what financing needs they have and how ING can support them in their transition ambitions,” said Sachdev.
This year, ING plans to enhance ESG.X by incorporating year-on-year progress measurement. It also intends to capture private climate transition data when public disclosures are lacking, among other measures.
‘Record quarter’ in sustainable financing
Sustainability remains a key focus for ING, Sachdev said, with 30.3 billion euros in sustainable finance volume mobilised globally in Q1 – a 23 per cent increase from a year earlier and the bank’s strongest first quarter on record.
In Apac, ING closed a record number of sustainable finance transactions and more than doubled the volume mobilised compared to the same period in 2024. The number of deals grew by over 50 per cent year-on-year.
In Singapore, it served as the sole ESG (environment, social and governance) restructuring adviser for Stoneweg European Reit’s 500 million euro green bond issuance in February. The bond was nearly five times oversubscribed.
The bank continues to see “lots of conversations” with clients on sustainable finance, with many pushing ahead on their decarbonisation efforts.
“Our own tools like ESG.X and others that we’ve developed and will continue to develop, is something that the bank is extremely focused on, given (that) sustainability is a key priority for us,” said Sachdev.
