Postbank N.V. was a large

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

, which went on to become part of

ING Group The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale bankin ...

. It had 7.5 million private account holders and was one of the largest providers of financial services in the country. It provided current and savings accounts, loans, mortgages, insurance, investments and pensions. As opposed to other banks, it had no branches but operated completely through land mail, telephone and online banking, although some operations have traditionally been available through

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

s. It was founded in 1881 by the national government as the ''Rijkspostspaarbank'' (National Postal Savings Bank). In 1986 it was privatised, together with the ''Postgiro'' service, as the Postbank. A merger in 1989 with the NMB Bank led to the creation of NMB Postbank Groep, and a further merger with insurer

Nationale Nederlanden NN Group N.V. is the parent company of NN Investment Partners and Nationale-Nederlanden (). Nationale-Nederlanden is one of the largest insurance and asset management companies in the Netherlands. NN Group is headquartered in The Hague, its off ...

in 1990 created the

. On 16 May 2007, ING Group announced plans to merge its ''ING Bank'' subsidiary with ''Postbank'' to form a single brand. The new organisation, launched in February 2009, is called ING and has approximately 8.3 million unique private account holders.

External links

1981 English-language commercial featuring John Cleese
ING Group Banks established in 1881 Banks disestablished in 2009 Dutch companies disestablished in 2009 Dutch companies established in 1881 Postal savings system {{Netherlands-bank-stub