ING cancels deal to sell its Russian bank to local investor, latter failed to obtain permits

MOSCOW. April 7 (Interfax) - The deal to sell the Russian subsidiary bank of the Netherlands' ING Group, announced just over a year ago, has been cancelled.

According to a statement from ING, the agreement with the counterparty, JSC Global Development, has been terminated due to the fact that "there currently is no realistic expectation that the buyer will obtain the necessary approvals."

"Our position remains unchanged: we see no future for ING in Russia and remain focused on ending our activities in the Russian market. We are assessing the next steps to achieve this goal," ING said.

In January 2025, ING announced that it had agreed to sell its Russian business to Moscow investors with experience in factoring services. The buyer of JSC ING Bank (Eurasia) was to be Global Development, with a charter capital of 15,000 rubles and which had been registered shortly before. Its general director is Andrei Muravyov, who also heads a small factoring company, AA Group. In the past, Muravyov headed the factoring company Klever.

At the time, it was planned that the deal, after approval by various regulatory authorities, would be closed in Q3 2025. ING expected losses of around 0.7 billion euros from its exit from Russia.

According to the statement on terminating the deal, the group will continue to reduce risks on Russian clients on ING's balance sheet. At the end of 2025, such risks amounted to 0.6 billion euros.

ING Bank ranked 66th in the Interfax-100 ranking in 2025, with assets of 102 billion rubles.