ING closes Cluj regional centre and fires 185

Autor: Laurentiu Cotu 23.03.2011

The ING group is preparing to close the services centre in Cluj opened just six months ago, for which 185 people had been recruited so far. The decision is surprising considering that at the beginning of this year, the management of ING Service Center Europe announced that it intended to hire over 400 people in 2011, after around 185 had been recruited last year.

Moreover, officials of the Cluj centre said at the beginning of the year that they would continue with the original plans, with ING Service Center set to have around 1,000 employees by the end of 2013. The decision to suspend operations in Cluj comes after a change in strategy of the insurance division, which scrapped plans to centralise operations in favour of making services more flexible.

"Now more than ever, we need to direct all our efforts towards answering our clients' needs. This objective is best attained locally, in each country. ING decided to shut down operations of the regional services centre in Cluj-Napoca, but the decision does not in any way impact ING clients or their contracts," said David Knibbe, CEO of ING Insurance Central and Rest of Europe (CRE).