Has anyone heard anything about ING? My husband heard people saying a few bad things about them this morning. Do we move our money into Westpac which has a lower percentage rate?

I rang them when this stuff all started happening, give them a ring, they are very helpful.
Apparently the.com.au part of ING is fully protected www.apra.com.au
Also they don't lend or borrow from overseas so equally as safe (if not safer) than with the big 4.
However that was a few months ago so I'd be greatful of any updates

Whats this? - havent heard of any probs...

I don't know. Some people at my husbands work have been talking and he doesn't like the idea of all of our savings being in ING. He is now talking about opening an account with St George. He is worrying that if something went wrong we would lose all of our money.

I read this on an F1 website today... ING are the major sponsor of Renault F1 and this article gives some bleak news for the company as a whole...


Trouble at ING


The Dutch financial services company, ING Groep NV, which supports the Renault F1 team, has run into more financial difficulties. The company received $13bn from the Dutch government in October to help it through the financial crisis. According to reports this morning on Bloomberg, ING will axe 7000 jobs shortly and its chief executive Michel Tilmant, a Formula 1 fan, is to resign. ING spends a considerable amount of money in F1 with the Renault sponsorship plus the title sponsorship of two Grands Prix and track advertising at 14 of the 18 races last year. According to the reports the company will cut its F1 sponsorships this year by 40%, although it has contractual obligations so the cuts are likely to be in all the peripheral activity. ING will assess in the midseason whether it will continue beyond the end of the year. ING spends $100m per season on its F1 programme, with around half of the money going to Renault and the rest of the signage and title sponsorships.

ING are actually huge (in the top 20 in the world) although we only generally hear of their ingdirect brand both here and in the UK. They employ around 130,000 people worldwide so the redundancies are only 5% of the workforce which is a lot less than many of the other international banks are planning on getting rid of and makes our big banks seem tiny in comparison.

ING Direct deposits are covered by the government bank guarantee in the same way as all others, personally I have my money in Bank of Queensland as they are paying a much higher rate than ING till end of March.