The money was used to boost the regulators’ favourite sort of loss-absorbing capital to 10.5% of the bank’s assets, plug an €8 billion hole in the holding company balance-sheet due to losses on its stakes in its subsidiaries, strengthen the capital position of the insurers and of course repay the state. Today ING reckons it has around €5.5 billion in excess capital. It plans to resume dividend payments by mid-2015. The bank is more efficient than it was: its cost/income ratio in 2013 was 35% lower than in 2008. It is also safer: though non-performing loans rose slightly in the first half of 2014, risk costs overall are declining.