Financial services group ING will remain the official state bank, despite it reaching a settlement with the public prosecution department over its failure to ensure compliance with money laundering legislation, finance minister Wopke Hoekstra has told MPs.

ING was allowed to compete for the lucrative contract, despite its earlier failings, and, says Hoekstra, emerged as the winner from the tender process. ING and Rabobank had reached the final round.

The bank may have made ‘serious errors’ in the past but has now taken ‘sufficient self-cleaning measures to restore confidence’, Hoekstra said in his briefing to MPs.

The new contract lasts for four years and involves ING taking charge of all government bank transfers, pin and Ideal payments, including international services, and totals some 40 million transactions a year.

The ING bid was the most cost-effective candidate, Hoekstra said.