ING funding oil firms it vowed to drop, report finds
ING has failed on its promise to stop financing oil and gas companies that keep opening new fields, an investigation...
Dutch bank ING has come under fire for funding oil and gas companies that were supposed to be excluded from its financing, according to a new investigation. ING promised in September 2024 to stop lending money to "pure-play" oil producers that were still opening new fields, but it continued to provide funding to three companies despite their continued expansion: Aker BP from Norway, Vår Energi and NEO Energy from the UK.
The bank's loans and bonds to these companies amounted to more than $900 million over 2024-2026. Environmental group Milieudefensie, representing Friends of the Earth, criticized the pledge as misleading, noting that larger diversified oil firms are not covered by the promise but are still able to receive financing from ING. While ING's direct lending to upstream oil and gas firms has fallen from €2 billion in 2024 to €1.4 billion in 2025, the bank's bond market arrangements to help these firms still enables their borrowing.
The investigation found at least one new oil field related to each of the three firms, as defined by the International Energy Agency, raising questions about ING's commitment to the pledge.
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