ING Belgium International Finance SA has announced new issuances of structured products in 2015 amounted to €73.5m while liquidations, including partial and total as well as final redemptions amounted to €734m, according to the company's results published today (April 11) on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

The ING Belgium subsidiary, which, until early 2015, used to finance itself solely through the issuance of structured notes distributed mainly by the retail and private banking networks of ING Belgium reported balance sheet amounts of €2.3bn as of December 31, 2015 against €2.9bn for the corresponding period in 2014. The profit for the financial year was €1.4m, according to the company.

ING Group decided to replace its Belgium subsidiary with the Dutch-domiciled ING Bank NV at the beginning of 2015 for the issuance of both structured products and warrants, with ING Belgium International Finance SA now in run-off. Pursuant to this new policy, the subsidiary has not issued new structured notes since the second half of 2015 and it is not expected to issue either notes or warrants in the future, according to ING. The outstanding structured notes and warrants will stay in circulation until their redemption, said ING.

Sales for products issued via ING Belgium International Finance SA have varied in recent years according to SRP data. The sole product for 2015, the 6Y USD Magnet Performance Notes 01/21, collected sales of €72.5m, while, in 2014, the company launched 30 structured products worth €601m, with the majority of sales from products linked to a basket of shares (€299m) followed by those linked to a single index - predominately the Eurostoxx 50 - with sales of €226m, interest rates (€61m), and commodities (€12m). In 2011, the company achieved its best results of the past five years, with sales of €850m from 33 structured products split between equities (€619m), interest rates (€129m), inflation (€97m) and hybrids (€5m).

Since changing to ING Bank NV as the issuing vehicle for its structured products ING has launched 23 products including 16 with sales of €216m in 2015 and seven structured products worth €221m with strike dates falling in this year.

As of December 31, 2015, the company in Belgium carried out transactions on derivatives instruments linked to the evolution of equity swaps (an index, a basket of indexes or a market rate) in relation to loans transactions with a notional amount of €1.6bn compared to €1.9bn for the period ending December 31, 2014, while the notional amount for derivative financial instruments linked to interest rate swaps amounted to €685m in 2015, compared to €1bn the previous year.

Click here to read the management report and here to read the annual accounts.

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