ING announced that it decided to shut down the regional service center in Cluj-Napoca, amid economic and legislative changes in recent years, that have considerably reduced its medium-term planned efficiency. Inaugurated in autumn of 2010 as part of a project to improve the efficiency of life insurance activity, ING Service Center Europe promised to generate 1,000 jobs by 2013.ING Service Center Europe was centralizing some functions of the departments Finance, IT and Operations of ING subsidiaries in Central Europe (Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Spain and Greece), offering common back-office services for insurance customers in these countries.
The management of the company has decided that, instead centralizing the local operations, ING should devote more resources towards increasing its flexibility to meet customer needs.
“Now, more than ever, we need to direct all efforts to meet the needs of our customers. This objective is best achieved at local level in each country”, said David KNIBBE, CEO, ING Insurance Central and Rest of Europe (CRE).
He stated that the regional center employees will be supported in reintegration in the labor market and that closing the center in Cluj will have no impact on ING’s clients or their contracts. “We realize that this decision affects especially our employees in the service center in Cluj-Napoca. We are committed to actively supporting them in finding a new job or in relocating them”, said David KNIBBE.
According to the press release, ending the activity of ING SCE has no impact on the ING Insurance CRE presence in this region, as it will remain a growth engine for the group. Also, banking and insurance operations of ING in Romania are not affected by the decision to shut down the regional service center in Cluj-Napoca.
“The company intends to continue its development plans and to provide the best products and services for its customers, in all countries in the region where it operates in the present”, ING representatives added in the press release.
In Romania, ING offers banking and financial services, life insurance, private pensions and assets and investment management, through ING Asigurari de Viata, ING Pensii SAFPAP, ING Bank, ING Lease, ING Commercial Finance and ING Real Estate Investment Management.
