ING online banking fires several thousand French customers – franceinfo

Big cleaning at ING. Since the summer, the Dutch bank has dismissed several thousand French customers holding only a house savings account, the LEO. A measure taken after the announcement, at the end of December, of the end of its online banking activities in France, the company confirmed on Friday (January 7th).

“Customer deposits will be fully refunded”, assures the bank which claims a million customers in France, but did not wish to specify the number of accounts concerned.

This could exceed 300,000, says the France Conso Banque association, which is based on information from employees and feedback from dissatisfied customers. Are targeted “uninteresting accounts” and unprofitable, “whether they are inactive, small or dormant”, explains to AFP its founder and president Michel Guillaud.

ING, for its part, is putting forward the context of low interest rates to justify these closures. “The European Central Bank (ECB) applies negative interest rates: the sums deposited by euro zone banks are taxed at -0.5%. In other words, they have to pay to deposit money”, she exposes. These closures would also concern the livrets A, according to France Conso Banque, an approach that it intends to contest.

ING announced on December 21 the end of its online banking activities in France, leading to the loss of around 460 jobs and the sale of the client portfolio. “Discussions with third parties” are in progress, adds the bank, without specifying the name of potential buyers.

According to information recently published in the press, Societe Generale is the favorite in the recovery. Its online bank, Boursorama, claims more than 3 million customers and hopes to have them “more than 4 million by 2023”.