Bangkok--27 May--Aziam Burson-Marsteller
Announces strong first quarter results
ING Life today announced its first quarter results and reported the success of its customer-driven growth strategy in Thailand and its overall business success in the Asia-Pacific region. This customer-driven growth strategy represents the next phase of ING Life’s customer centricity program announced earlier this year. The company’s results showed solid performance across all sales channels. This performance in the face of a difficult market environment can be attributed to ING Life’s clear focus on its customers across all aspects of its operations.
Across Asia, ING Group has attained strong market position and is currently moving to take the #2 position in the region. The first quarter saw ING complete its “Back to Basics” strategy ahead of schedule, resulting in significant cost savings and reductions of risk. This strategy, put in place during the financial crisis of 2008, was designed to ensure that ING Group maintained a strong financial position by focusing on core businesses and controlling costs. In Thailand, ING Life has maintained its market position amidst stiff competition while successfully transitioning to its new operational structure.
“We are very excited about ING’s performance in Asia and our potential for the future, given our strength in several key regional markets,” said Mr. Frank Koster, CEO, Insurance Asia/Pacific, ING Group. “Last year ING Group outlined four key priorities that would shape our future and we are on track to deliver all of them, which is indicated by the Group’s solid performance in Asia and around the world. The priorities we have focused on are improving our operational performance, separating our banking from our insurance businesses, repaying our obligations to the Dutch government and divesting non-core businesses when appropriate. Our timeline to complete our work in each priority area is 2013 and I am confident that we will achieve that target.”
“Through our customer-driven growth strategy and our customer centric structure, ING Life Thailand has improved both our operational and financial performance, which is in line with the Group’s overall strategy,” said Mr. Rajesh Sethi, President and CEO, ING Life Thailand. “We have been successfully building our business in Thailand with Tied Agency, Bancassurance and Telemarketing as our key sales channels and we continue to develop these areas to better serve our customers and partners and expand our business. We are transforming our agency through professional recruiting and intensive training. Agents will continue to be the most important distribution channel for ING Life. Our strong distribution relationship with TMB is well known. Based on the progress we’ve made and the growth of the Thai economy, ING Life Thailand is confident that it is on track to realize our full potential in this market.”
Across the Asia/Pacific region, the insurance industry is growing due to the economic growth and dynamism of the region along with significant demographic shifts in many countries including the expansion of both middle-aged and retirement aged populations that require savings protection and health care support. The insurance business in large emerging markets like China and India is expected to achieve compound annual growth rate of 14.4% and 17.6% respectively between 2009 and 2013.
A key initiative being undertaken in Thailand that will move forward the customer-driven growth strategy and realize the ideal of customer centricity is the deployment of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) system. This system involves creating a culture that is based on seeking out and acting on customer feedback. ING Life will be regularly asking its customers across Thailand for their input and insights regarding the company’s services and products in order to continually improve its operational performance. While NPS was originally designed for use in the field of market research, ING Life has identified it as a powerful new tool to bring the company closer to its customers and leverage this relationship for mutually beneficial results in the form of new and improved systems, processes and products based on real customer needs.
“The focus and dedication of the ING Life Thailand team to put the customer at the center of everything we do has been evident for some time, and is most recently reflected in our solid Q1 2010 performance. Our first year premiums increased approximately 20% to 480 million Baht versus the same period last year, while our total gross premiums for the quarter increased by 22% to 1,734 million Baht over Q1 2009. We are very pleased with these results, especially considering the challenges that the market has faced and the fact we were implementing a new organizational structure during the quarter. I have no doubt that our customer-driven growth strategy will continue to prove successful as we move forward in the Thai market,” concluded Mr. Sethi.
The Q1 2010 results for the whole ING Group were also strong with underlying net profit increasing to EUR 1,018 million versus a loss of EUR 236 million loss in the same quarter last year. Shareholder’s equity increased by EUR 4.4 billion to EUR 38.2 billion, or EUR 10.10 per share. ING’s global insurance business posted a first quarter underlying profit of EUR 269 million versus a EUR 954 million loss in Q1 2009.
Profile ING
ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, insurance and asset management to over 75 million private, corporate and institutional clients in more than 50 countries. With a diverse workforce of about 110,000 people, ING comprises a broad spectrum of prominent companies that increasingly serve their clients under the ING brand.
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