ING's commitment to sustainable finance is reflected in the 60 sustainability improvement loans and green loans that were supported in 2019, plus 62 social sustainability bonds. This is an increase of 119% from 2018.

On 28 January, blockchain-based trade finance platform Contour, co-founded by ING Ventures, launched into the $18 trillion global trade finance market. Contour was co-created by ING and seven other banks in 2018 to simplify letters of credit, reducing the amount of time needed to process them from five to 10 days to under 24 hours.

ING and partners aim to enhance sustainability in infrastructure through exploring circular business models. More insights can be found in the report from the Business Models and Value Cases working group of the Open Learning Environment Circular Bridges and Viaducts in the Netherlands.

Global Finance magazine’s awards celebrate the best trade finance providers based on entries from banks and input from industry analysts, corporate executives and technology experts.

Almost half (8.2 million tons) of the plastic used for packaging in Europe (20.5 million tons) is used to pack food, according to a new ING report: ‘Plastic packaging in the food sector - Six ways to tackle the plastic puzzle in the food sector’.

ING’s ability to use technology to improve its approach to regulatory compliance was given a boost with the multi-million investment in US-based regulatory technology (regtech) company Ascent.

On 23 October, ING’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) team introduced its zero knowledge proof notary service, a blockchain breakthrough that improves the privacy and security of transactions on Corda, an open source blockchain platform. The service evaluates the validity of a transaction without revealing anything about it, except that it’s valid.

The technology platform set to shake up the mining and metals sector, MineHub, announced that its blockchain-based platform is now live and available to industry participants. MineHub, an ING partner since January 2019, makes the entire supply chain more secure, transparent and efficient.

On 22 September, 130 banks from around the world signed the Principles for Responsible Banking at the UN’s Climate Action Summit New York. One day later, ING and 30 other banks took it even a step further and signed the Collective Commitment to Climate Action.

ING is one of the first two banks to test an API (application programming interface) that allows clients to see the status of their bank guarantees in real time on their own banking platform.

Certain interest rate benchmarks like EONIA, EURIBOR and LIBOR are being reformed. If any of your financial products or internal processes refer to these rates or other interest rate benchmarks, the following information is relevant for you.

ING has introduced the world’s first sustainability improvement derivative (SID), a derivative with a credit spread that is linked to sustainability performance. The SID is being provided to SBM Offshore in connection with its US$1 billion, five-year revolving credit facility.

ING joins blockchain-based platform Forcefield to make post-trade commodity transaction processing cheaper, safer, and more efficient.

Now in its seventh year, The Innovators is an annual award of Global Finance magazine, honouring top innovations in areas such as payments, trade finance, cash management and islamic finance. Katana was recognised in the corporate finance category.

The Voltron initiative, built on R3’s Corda blockchain platform, has completed global trials which saw over 50 banks, including ING, and corporates participate in the simulation of multiple digital Letter of Credit transactions across 27 countries on six continents.