Banking and insurance giant ING on Thursday announced it is to scrap 2,000 full-time jobs over the next two years and a further 700 external functions.

The reorganisation, which will cut costs and improve results, is being carried out ahead of expected changes to the banking system.
ING announced a profit of €1.692bn in the third quarter of 2011, seven times the €239m booked in the year earlier period and higher than expected. Analysts had forecast profit of €1.624bn.
Unions
Sector trade unions FNV Bondgenoten and CNV reacted with fury to the job losses.
Bondgenoten wants immediate talks with the bank to draw up a social plan. ‘We were expecting something with the developments in the financial sector, but not on this level,’ the union’s leader Fred Polhout told news agency ANP.
‘The bank is healthy and making billions in profit,’ said CNV’s Ike Wiersinga. She expects 1,700 of the job cuts to be forced redundancies.
Unavoidable
Economics minister Maxime Verhagen said the cuts showed that ‘painful decisions’ have to be taken to ensure the continuation of companies such as ING.
The minister pointed out that ING still has to repay part of the state support it received from the treasury during the financial crisis.