ING's Dutch parent was in financial difficulty and maybe still is.
Yes, the Haague is still bailing out ING Group after their disaster investments on leverging themselves to be the largest Commercial Real Estate owners of the world, among the financial giants. Still they are less ugly compared to Fortis and ABN Amro.
The group is going to be splited into Banking and Insurance divisions if I am not mistaken in 2011, 20 years after the founding of ING Group.
WRT ING Direct, I am not so sure what the Dutch are going to do with this division since ING Direct in Canada, US, Australia, Germany, Spain, France, UK and Italy are
not integrated into one seemless operation where the client could switch or transfer funds from one ING Direct account say from Canada to another say in UK, or even bank accounts at Postbank in Netherlands.
Moreover ING Direct in America is going to be put on block for sale in 2013, as a condition for getting bailed out by the Haague.
It's funny to notice that both CEO and CFO stepped down right after the Dutch government bailed out are
not Dutch, while the Chief
Risk Officer of the group, who is a Dutch, is still on the job. For those who want to know, the former CEO is a Belgian and the former CFO is a Canadian.
BTW, the current CFO at ING Group if I could recall is an Irishman who was recruited from HSBC.
HSBC is simply an amazing bank, they are truly a global bank as they are everywhere. Technically, HSBC is a U.K. bank despite its Hong Kong roots.
Maybe before 2003 but not anymore after they took over Household International, aka HSBC Finance.
Those mainly Scottish expats and their Chinese, Indian sidekicks were saving so much that they had excessive deposits to squander by buying friendship to the Trailer Parks Americans, helping the latter to keep up with the Jones through wanton lending, but not to the point like Citibank via CitiFinancial, or even GE Money.
If you want to be absolute anal, you could say what HSBC did at HSBC Finance is similar to suddenly very loaded mainland Chinese men trying to get attention/feel accepted/fit in/be the kind of people middle/upper-class white Anglo-Saxon men seem to be by acting like sugar daddies to those has-been White ladies or their aspired trophy types wannabes White sisters, only to be "backfired" when those ladies fake the whole "relationship" before dumping the dudes, taking his money and run!!
Having said that, HSBC was lucky not to inflict serious damage to the point that in addition to USD $17 Billion or sort shares issuance to top up the balance sheet, they beg the Mandarin speaking Chinese Communists to bail them out. That would be a big tragedy.
BTW, Don Guloien, the hocho running Manulife nowadays started his career at Household International before joining Manulife.