ING Completes Internet Banking Project on Sun ...

AMERSFOORT/AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- August 30, 2005 --ING, one of the world´s leading financial institutions, has implemented a completely new and powerful internet banking infrastructure for its largest Dutch retail bank, Postbank. The new platform has been developed and implemented by Sun Microsystems. As a result, customers now enjoy a faster and more stable environment for their online financial transactions.

Postbank is one of the most popular banks in The Netherlands with over seven million customers, of which more than a one and a half million use online banking. Postbank is the first ING company to benefit from the new integrated systems infrastructure. The full implementation of the front-end of the internet banking infrastructure was handled by Sun Microsystems. All components, including computer infrastructure, network infrastructure and middleware, were implemented on time and within budget.

˝ING selected Sun Microsystems because it showed a true partner approach right from the beginning,˝ said Erik Dralans, worldwide head of OPS & IT Banking for ING Group. ˝In addition to this, Sun proved it was able to deliver a complex infrastructure in a challenging environment, fitting our ambituous growth strategy. The new environment substantially enhances the customer experience. It is also adaptable; any changes we make to our banking service subsequently will not lead to service degradation for the end-user.˝

The new environment has been designed for optimal future growth and flexibility, using Sun´s N1 Service Provisioning System (N1 SPS). N1 SPS helps customers to quickly and easily deploy applications within a network computing environment. By automating processes it helps accelerate application deployment time from days to hours or even less. Also it reduces costs by automating manual, repetitive tasks and increases application availability by eliminating configuration errors.

˝The delivery of this complete internet banking infrastructure is fully in line with Sun´s overall strategy to be a project solutions provider˝, said Peter Cunningham, Sun´s head of advanced services for financial customers. ˝We have an established presence in financial sector, and this implementation with ING is a strategic underpinning of our ability to reduce cost and complexity. We are delighted to help Postbank to achieve sustainable business advantages on the Internet.˝

About ING Group

ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, insurance and asset management to over 60 million private, corporate and institutional clients in more than 50 countries. With a diverse workforce of over 112,000 people, ING comprises a broad spectrum of prominent companies that increasingly serve their clients under the ING brand.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision -- ˝The Network Is The Computer˝ -- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world´s most important markets. Sun´s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Source: Sun Microsystems
www.sun.com