John Hele to replace Cees Maas as CFO of ING

Cees Maas (1947, Dutch), Vice-Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of ING Group, will retire as of 24 April 2007 (AGM) having reached the age of 60. Cees Maas joined ING Group as a member of the Executive Board in 1992. He was appointed Chief Financial Officer in July 1996 and in April 2004 he became vice-chairman of the Executive Board. The Supervisory Board of ING Group is honoured to announce that Cees Maas will continue to serve ING as an advisor to the Executive Board and awarded him with the title of honourary Vice-Chairman of ING Group.

Given the increasing complexity and importance of both the finance and risk roles within ING, the Supervisory Board has decided to split the roles of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer into two positions on the Executive Board.

The Supervisory Board intends to appoint John Hele (1958, Canadian) as Chief Financial Officer and member of the ING Group Executive Board. John Hele is currently deputy Chief Financial Officer reporting to Cees Maas. Prior to assuming this role in 2006, he was General Manager and Chief Insurance Risk Officer as well as the Group Actuary. He spent most of his career at Merrill Lynch in New York, taking up positions as an investment banker in the Financial Institutions Group and as a marketing executive in the retail division.

The Supervisory Board intends to appoint Koos Timmermans (1960, Dutch) as Chief Risk Officer and member of the ING Group Executive Board. Koos Timmermans is currently deputy Chief Risk Officer reporting to Cees Maas. Before this appointment he was General Manager Corporate Market Risk Management, where he was responsible for trading risk, asset & liability management and market risk in retail portfolios. He was also responsible for Operational Risk Management. Koos Timmermans has worked at ING since 1996. Before joining ING he held positions at IBM’s European treasury in Ireland and at ABN Amro.