ING Group Q3 Profit Climbs

(RTTNews) - Dutch banking firm ING Group (ING) Wednesday reported increased profit for the third quarter, saying that it accelerated repayment of final tranche of core Tier 1 securities after comfortably passing the AQR and stress test.

Net result for the group surged to 928 million euros from 128 million euros in the prior year. Last year results have been restated.

ING noted that NN Group has been reclassified as "held for sale" and "discontinued operations" effective as of September 30. Following the IPO of NN Group in July, ING Group's stake in NN Group stands at 68.1 percent.

The latest result represents ING's 68.1 percent stake in NN Group's net result of 354 million euros, as well as the impact of classifying NN Group as "held for sale." These impacts were a 70 million euros write-down of goodwill and a 333 million euros write-down of certain other non-current assets.

The company's underlying net result rose to 1.123 billion euros from 820 million euros in the third quarter of 2013.

Total underlying income was 3.942 billion euros, compared with 3.774 billion euros last year, despite 69 million euros of negative CVA/DVA impacts.

Provision for losses declined this time to 322 million euros from 552 million euros a year ago.

Interest result improved to 3.156 billion euros from 2.936 billion euros, while Commission Income advanced to 579 million euros from 546 million euros.

In ING banking, the underlying result before tax climbed 34.7 percent to 1.486 billion euros, reflecting higher interest results and a decline in risk costs.

Retail Banking recorded underlying result before tax of 946 million euros, up from last year's 745 million euros, mainly due to higher interest margins on lending and savings in most countries.

In Commercial Banking, underlying result before tax was 677 million euros, including a 42 million euros CVA/DVA impact. Excluding the CVA/DVA impact, the pre-tax result increased 56 percent with improvement in all segments.

ING also said it would pay the final tranche of 1.025 billion euros to the Dutch State on November 7, half a year ahead of the repayment schedule as agreed with the European Commission in 2012.

ING closed down 1.5 percent on Tuesday in Amsterdam at 11.22 euros.