South Korea

“Sustainability is ingrained in the way we do business at ING. We have been trying to engage our local clients in sustainable finance discussions for some years now. We are excited that these efforts are now finally bearing fruit and look forward to helping Philippine companies in their sustainability journey,” says Hans B. Sicat, country manager of ING Bank in Manila.

ING and Korea Housing Finance Corporation (KHFC) have worked together to deliver the inaugural social covered bond in Asia. KHFC is a state-run enterprise responsible for enhancing the welfare of people and national economic development by supporting the Korean government’s housing welfare policy.

Helping clients aiming to solve today’s environmental challenges, ING Bank recently arranged the first 10-year local currency green bond issuance from Southeast Asia, denominated in Philippine peso, for Sindicatum Renewables.

ING has acted as the joint green loan coordinator of the newly announced SGD 1.2 billion term loan to an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Frasers Property Limited. The net proceeds of this loan will be used to refinance existing loans relating to the development of Frasers Tower, a new 38-storey premium office and retail development.

ING Bank announced the appointment of Yuanyuan Liu as branch manager of ING Bank Beijing, effective 1 August 2018.

With the battle against climate change now being waged on a global scale, sustainable finance emerges as one of the ways to go forward.

ING sees great potential in sustainable finance as green bonds in China continue to achieve strong growth.

China has retaliated to US plans to impose tariffs on its goods. Stock markets have fallen after this tit-for-tat action. So, where are we and what's likely to happen next? Watch the video.

Instead of unleashing a trade war against China and criticising European trade policies, US workers would be better off if Trump adopted European-style labour policies, says ING's economist Raoul Leering.

Four scenarios for how trade wars could unfold and how costly a global trade war would be for major economies - as well as the implications for the US dollar and global risk sentiment.

According to President Trump, the US trade deficit is the result of unfair trade policies by other countries. In his view, there isn't a level playing field between the US and many of its trading partners. Read ING's analysis.

ING has acted as the Sustainability Coordinator of Olam International Limited’s USD 500m sustainability-linked revolving credit facility, which is linked to its sustainability programme.

Like the rest of the world, Asia expanded solidly last year while inflation was largely subdued. Will these trends continue in 2018 and beyond?

ING has partnered Wilmar International Limited on its first sustainability performance-linked loan in Asia. Wilmar will convert a portion of its existing bilateral, committed revolving credit facility with the bank into a sustainability performance-linked loan.

ING announces the appointment of Eddy Henning as head of Corporate Client Coverage, Transaction Services and Corporate Finance Asia as of 1 January 2018.

Global Finance magazine has announced the winners of its World’s Best Global Banks 2017 Awards, where for the first time ever it has named the Best Bank in the World. The winner is ING.

ING has appointed Rob Carnell as chief economist and head of Research Asia-Pacific to succeed Tim Condon, effective 1 July 2017.

Collective brings together funding partners ING Bank, Credit Suisse, FMO and the UNDP-UN Social Impact Fund to finance sustainability projects in Asia.

“After China, South Korea is the most important trading partner of the Netherlands in Asia, with exports growing 30% over the past five years. Conversely, Korean companies exported goods and services to us worth €2.6bn as we are the fourth destination in Europe. So every reason for the Dutch government to organise another trade mission."

Learn more about South Korea’s imports, exports and trading partners in our new Country trade view South Korea.

World trade has failed to outpace world GDP since 2012. Sluggish growth of trade is poised to continue for the coming years. Read our report 'World trade: No strong recovery in sight yet.