A subsidiary of ING is a suspect in a criminal investigation for violating the Financial Supervision Act. This was introduced following a statement from regulator De Nederlandsche Bank. The public prosecutor confirmed this after reporting in the FD.

According to the FD, the provider of online payment services Payvision is suspected of money laundering. The tax investigation service FIOD is said to have carried out a raid on the Amsterdam office in May. Sources told the newspaper that FIOD employees seized thousands of emails, meeting minutes and dozens of client files. Documents were also collected at ING.

Between 2005 and 2010, Payvision is said to have passed on amounts in the double-digit millions from companies that later turned out to be involved in criminal activities. Fraud signals would not have been checked and some customers would have been deliberately left unchecked.

Gambling, crypto and porn industries

In 2018, ING took a 75 percent stake in Payvision, which was promising at the time. According to the FD, the bank paid 350 million euros for this. The other shares were acquired in 2019 and 2020. In 2020, FD wrote that Payvision mainly has clients in the gambling, crypto, and porn industries.

A year later, ING decided to liquidate the company. According to the bank, this process will be completed later this year.

ING had previously been discredited in connection with money laundering. In 2018, the bank achieved a record settlement with the public prosecutor’s office: 775 million euros were paid at the time to avoid prosecution for failure to prevent money laundering.

Between 2010 and 2016, customers had used their ING account to launder hundreds of millions of euros, while De Nederlandsche Bank had repeatedly warned ING about this. Prosecutors said ING had failed in its role as the gatekeeper of the financial system.