ING is to outsource its international cash equities clearance and settlements operations in London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore to The Bank of New York.
The agreement calls on Bank of New York to provide ING with correspondent and fully disclosed clearing services to proprietary and institutional customer agency businesses. The services provided will vary geographically, and will include the generation of trade confirmations and statements, settlements of trades, and in certain locations, maintaining ING's books and records.
The agreement calls for the transfer of approximately 100 ING staff, primarily in London, who will become employees of The Bank of New York. It adds to The Bank of New York's existing institutional broker/dealer clearing operations in London as well as its correspondent clearing operations in Asia and the United States.
ING says the arrangement fits its strategy to provide its businesses with high quality, variable cost clearing and settlement services.
Erik Dralans, member of executive committee Europe, ING, comments: "This agreement will, through The Bank of New York's development of settlements technology infrastructure, offer us the ability to carry out a high volume of transactions efficiently, whilst also allowing us to offer competitive variable costs to our international cash equity business."
The agreement comes two months after the Dutch bank uncovered a Y500 million settlement fraud at ING Securities in Tokyo.