Financial services group ING says it stopped doing business with the Russian state in 2022 and no longer holds government bonds, after reports suggested the bank had lent hundreds of millions of euros to Moscow in the years following the annexation of Crimea and the downing of flight MH17.

The Dutch lender told RTL Z it was “common practice” for its Russian branch to invest surplus cash in government bonds before sanctions were introduced, but said those holdings have since been reduced to a “negligible” amount.

RTL Z said on Monday that between 2014 and 2022, ING sharply increased its exposure to Russian government debt, at a time when international tensions were already high.

In 2020 the bank held around €280 million in Russian bonds, compared with just a few million in 2015. Interest rates of up to 8% earned ING tens of millions of euros in profit.

Karel Burger Dirven, honorary consul of Ukraine in the Netherlands, said ING’s actions “contributed to Russian aggression”. “They should have scaled back after 2014 — just leave, lock the door, throw away the key,” he said. “Every euro contributes to the aggression, whether it’s €100,000 or a quarter of a billion.”

Following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU banned European banks from financing the Russian state. ING’s 2022 accounts contain no Russian bonds, but its 2023 and 2024 filings have not been made public.

MPs from across the political spectrum have criticised the bank’s action. D66 MP Jan Paternotte called it “deeply irresponsible” that ING continued lending to Russia after the annexation of Crimea and the MH17 disaster. “The bank helped to finance Putin’s war machine,” he said.

Paternotte said it was “incomprehensible” that ING has not yet fully exited Russia more than three years after the invasion. “We will ask the government how this can be accelerated so that Dutch banks no longer serve Putin’s interests,” he said.

VVD MP Eric van der Burg also called for clarification, saying banks “have a moral obligation” and the matter should be discussed with the minister.

Sale

The bank said in January 2025 it is selling its Russian business to Global Development JSC, a Russian company owned by a Moscow-based financial investor.

The Dutch bank said at the time that since February 2022, it has taken on no new business with Russian companies, has scaled down operations and has taken actions to separate the business from ING’s networks and systems.

Once the deal is completed, ING will “continue to further reduce its offshore exposure to Russian clients”, the statement said. A the beginning of this year, Russian clients had around €1 billion in ING accounts, including in the Netherlands.