Still harder were the requirements of the European Commission, which told ING to hive off insurance and shrink. It sold off not only insurance operations from Argentina to South Korea but also direct banking in America, Canada and Britain, private banking, asset management, custody services and more—conducting more than 50 transactions in five years, says Patrick Flynn, its chief financial officer. It still owns 32% of its American insurance arm (floated in 2013 as Voya) and 68% of the European-cum-Japanese version (floated in 2014 as NN Group), but will sell down the latter from January. Including the market value of the insurance stakes it still holds, ING realised some €40 billion.