ING to cut 1,000 jobs in Belgium

ING Belgium has announced that it will cut 1,000 jobs by the end of 2015. According to the bank, the workforce will need to be reduced to a total of 8,560 jobs as a result of the increasing use of online banking. "There was concern for a long time, but a layoff this big we didn't see coming," Stefaan Decock, National Finance Secretary of the trade union federation LBC-NVK, told De Morgen. Decock fears that there is more going on than the success of online banking. ING emphasises that the reduction will occur through "natural attrition", with no collective redundancy expected. In November last year, it was announced that ING would close 40 offices in Wallonia and Brussels.