Turkey's Oyakbank Becomes ING Bank

ISTANBUL - Turkey`s Oyakbank became ING Bank on Monday.
Dutch ING group purchased Turkey`s Oyakbank and changed the name of the bank as "ING Bank".
"The institutional change and transformation lasted about six months," Hakan Emirsoy, the director general of the ING Bank Turkey, told a press conference in Istanbul.
Emirsoy said that ING bank aimed to raise its branches to 600, double its market share and employ 2,500 more people in five years.
The director said that the bank also planned to open 75 new branches and 30 express branches in 2008.
Oyakbank`s assets were up 6.l1 percent and reached 12.5 billion new Turkish liras (YTL) in 2007. Oyakbank`s net profit was up 29 percent in 2007 over 2006, and reached 135 million YTL. It has 6,111 staff, 352 branches and 810 ATMs as of July 2008.
Founded in 1991 by a merger between Nationale-Nederlanden and NMB Postbank Group, ING is a global financial services company providing banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services. It serves more than 75 million customers in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia and Australia. Based on market capitalisation (31 March 2008), ING is one of the 20 largest financial institutions worldwide.
Oyakbank agreed in the summer of 2007 with ING Bank to sell 100 percent of its shares at 2.6 billion USD.
(BRC-MS)
(ECO)