ING Mulls Australia Banking Unit Sale

Dutch financial-services company, ING Groep, is considering selling its Australian online banking unit.

Dutch financial-services company, ING Groep, is considering selling its Australian online banking unit, Bloomberg reports. The ING Direct unit in Australia had about €17.8 billion of deposits and €27.9 billion euros of residential mortgages outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2010. Interested parties in the sale include Standard Chartered. The bank and insurer may also consider the sale of its commercial-banking operations in Asia to cut its balance sheet by about 45% by 2014 from 2008 levels.

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