Banking group ING has paid the June invoices of hundreds of freelancers who had been left out of pocket after broker TCP ran into financial problems, the Financieele Dagblad said on Friday.

‘ING believes there should be an end to the uncertainty facing external staff and suppliers about payment,’ the bank told the paper in a statement. The bank had already paid June’s TCP invoice, the paper said. Its sources suggest the extra payment will cost some €10m.

TCP deals with the admin for some 850 bank freelancers, many of whom earn around €10,000 a month, the paper said. A number had threatened to down tools because of the payment problems.

The FD said earlier this week that freelance organisations are concerned about the rise in brokers specialising in hiring in self-employed workers for rock-bottom fees.

The paper says multinationals and government departments have farmed out the administration of some 150,000 freelancers to brokers, who then become responsible for payments.

‘The added value of this link in the chain is nil,’ Denis Maessen of freelancer lobby group PZO told the paper. ‘The end client only wants to get rid of risks and bring down fees.’