According to the ING’s supervisory board chief executive Ralph Hamers is underpaid compared with his international peers. The bank’s move to boost Hamers’ total remuneration to €3m triggered uproar in the Netherlands. In the meantime ING has already abandoned the plans to award a 50 percent pay rise to Ralph Hamers. On 13 March 2018 the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad published an opinion article of Ivo Arnold, Professor of Monetary Economics at Erasmus School of Economics.
In the opinion of Prof. Arnold ING is not a private company that is completely separate from the Dutch government: ‘ING should not compare itself with top companies for its remuneration policy. It is rather a semi-governmental institution. When it comes down to it, a system bank like ING will be saved by the government. And if ING falls over, foreign savers will go to the Dutch Government with their hand out.’
You can read the article in the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad below, 13 March 2018.