As promised last summer by its new CEO, Barclays is beefing-up its retail banking business.
Britain’s second bank agreed to buy ING Direct UK, the loss-making British online bank of the Dutch financial services group.
ING Direct UK employs 750 people and has 1.5 million customers.
Barclays will take over nearly £11-billion (13.5 billion euros) in savings deposits and £5.6 billion (nearly 7 billion euros) of mortgage loans.
No purchase price was disclosed ING has admitted agreeing a 3% discount on the mortgage portfolio.
As a result, this sale will put a transaction loss of 320 million euros, after tax, on the Dutch group’s balance sheet.
On the other hand, ING’s bad loans will release 330 million euros in capital.
ING is multiplying asset sales to try to pay back the last third of 10 billion euros in state aid it got in 2008, during the financial crisis.
ING shares were down 1.2% on Tuesday in Amsterdam. In London, in high volumes, Barclays’ share price fell 0.36%.
