As a result of Brexit, ING is required to relocate a subset of Financial Markets (FM) trading activities from London to a EU27 country.
Around 30 trading roles and 15 related risk management roles are in scope of this decision. Based on the information available at the time, ING opted for Brussels as the preferred location and the staff involved was informed accordingly in January.
Based on new insights, ING has revisited this decision. The outcome is that ING’s EU27 trading operations and the related risk management roles will now move from London to Amsterdam instead of Brussels.
Since the announcement of the relocation to Brussels, the Covid-19 crisis has hit the world hard. As a consequence, ING has been looking at ways to further reduce costs and de-risk its operation.
On the cost front, further insights in both the cost of moving the FM business to Brussels as well as running an FM operation showed that Amsterdam would be the more beneficial location.
In addition, in Amsterdam ING already has a relatively large Financial Institutions/Financial Markets (FIFM) risk organization, which can be effectively leveraged during and after the transfer of the operations in the current environment.
The operations concerned will be transferred to the existing dealing room at ING’s head office in Amsterdam, where the Financial Markets department currently employs around 115 FTEs.
The teams have been informed personally and will be closely supported during the upcoming transition.
The change in EU27 trading location does not impact ING’s clients or its client coverage. Neither will it impact sales teams in any location. The FM teams in both the UK and Belgium will remain an important part of ING’s FM business.