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Published on November 10, 2007

Yet it will be "no easy uplift", said Hans van der Noordaa, a member of ING Group's executive board.

 However, Noordaa, who also oversees the group's insurance and investment businesses in Asia-Pacific, added that once the condition of the bank was stable, with NPLs cleared and growth in double digits, the new major shareholder would contemplate raising its stake to 35 per cent.

The Dutch group has been shopping around the region since the early 2000s. For instance, it has managed to hold a 44-per-cent key stake in India's ING Vysya Bank, just before the country passed strict regulations concerning foreign ownership of financial institutions.

The bank's network of 404 branches has played an important part in maintaining 60-per-cent growth in its life-insurance business.

TMB Bank's base of five million customers and 472 branches will serve as a launching platform for ING's expansion in insurance via more bancassurance products and retail and wholesale banking.

TMB Bank's asset management, TMB Asset Management, will stay as a separate entity despite its partnership with the Macquarie Group.

Noordaa sees no conflict of interest and raises the possibility of TMB Asset Management's selling ING financial products.

"It is a long-term commitment," said Noordaa.

Spectators are left wondering about the fate of the incumbent senior management team.

The new partner from Amsterdam will send in an ING force to "fix what has to be fixed" in Thailand's fifth-largest bank.

TMB Bank's strong military presence in the boardroom does not put ING Group off, as it trumped DBS Group Holdings which had joined forces with Deutsche Bank in a last-minute shoot-out.

Noordaa said the group has had a similar experience in acquiring Oyak Bank in Turkey, which was partly owned by the Turkish Army Members Solidarity Fund.

Ki Nan Tsui

 The Nation