RTTNews | Nov 5, 2020 01:51AM EST

01:51 Thursday, November 5, 2020 (RTTNews.com) - ING Group (ING) reported that its third-quarter net result dropped 41.4 percent to 788 million euros from the prior year's 1.34 billion euros, with net result per share decreasing to 0.20 euros, from 0.35 euros in the previous year. The company will cut about 1,000 jobs by year-end 2021.

"In Wholesale Banking, we will concentrate even more on core clients and simplify our geographical footprint, which will require fewer staff. This includes closing our offices in South America and some in Asia, while continuing to serve the international needs of clients from our regional hubs," said Steven van Rijswijk, CEO of ING Group.

The company said it has decided to considerably reduce the scope of Maggie, a program launched to provide a standardized customer experience and integrate the product offering in four of our European Challenger countries. The decision has been taken due to the current economic headwinds and learnings from the complexities and costs of cross-border system and product integration.

According to the company, the change in Maggie's scope has led to an impairment of 140 million euros, primarily related to capitalized software development costs.

The refocusing of its wholesale and retail activities will result in a headcount reduction of about 1,000 Full-time equivalents by year-end 2021, the company said.

ING's result before tax for the third-quarter was 1.20 billion euros, down from 1.91 billion euros in the prior year.

Net interest income for the quarter declined to 3.33 billion euros from last year's 3.53 billion euros, due to liability margin pressure, subdued lending growth and negative foreign currency impact

Total income decreased to 4.29 billion euros, from 4.63 billion euros in the previous year.

The company announced new long-term CET1 ratio ambition level of around 12.5% translates into a about 200 bps buffer over current minimum regulatory requirements. It will manage well above this ambition level while Covid-19-related uncertainties remain.

The company also introduced a new distribution policy of a 50% pay-out ratio of resilient net profit, in the form of cash or a combination of cash and share repurchases.

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