Keep it simple

Finance is re-discovering the virtues of simplicity. ING, the Dutch bancassurer, is radically streamlining its previously over-complex and opaque structure into just two main business lines; banking and insurance. It plans to dispose of businesses, make units more accountable, and boost returns to capital. State support, ING has had a good dose of it, may have something to do with the company’s planned new look, although the group stresses it’s not under pressure to make changes. Certainly, the...