ING second-quarter profit rises 1.5 percent, beating estimates

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch bank ING Group <INGA.AS> on Thursday reported a 1.5 percent rise in second-quarter underlying pretax profit to 2.02 billion euros (£1.79 billion), beating analyst expectations, helped by a strong economy and growing customer base.

Analysts polled by Reuters on average expected a fall in earnings to 1.83 billion euros, from 1.99 billion euros a year ago.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Sunil Nair)