Barclays snaps up ING's UK business Barclays is taking over ING Direct UK, the British online banking arm of ING, in a deal that will saddle the Dutch financial services group with a €320m post-tax loss. The takeover involves the transfer of 1.5m customers to Barclays and follows a decision by ING to focus investment on markets in which ING Direct has a broader business. Customers of ING Direct in the UK have lodged £10.9bn of savings deposits with the bank, while it also has a mortgage-lending operation with outstanding balances of £5.6bn. No purchase price was disclosed. However, Barclays, which has about 15m customers in the UK, is picking up the mortgage book at a discount of about 3 per cent, while the deposits are being transferred at par value. The takeover is one of the first significant external moves taken by Barclays" new chief executive Antony Jenkins, who took over at the end of August after the Libor scandal led to the resignation of Bob Diamond, his predecessor. Barclays said the deal would improve its return on equity immediately without having a material impact on its core tier one capital. ING, which had flagged a possible sale of the UK business in August, said its loss on the deal would be offset by a capital release of about €330m. In August, the Dutch group announced the sale of the Canadian arm of ING Direct to Scotiabank for C$3.1bn ($3.2bn). The UK arm of ING Direct was launched in 2003 and employs about 750 people. Barclays, which intends to integrate the ING business into its UK retail and business banking division, said it was too early to say whether there would be job losses in the longer term, although there were no plans for redundancies at present. ING Direct customers were expected to retain at least equivalent terms and conditions to those they currently enjoyed, Barclays added. The deal is subject to regulatory approval and Barclays expects it to complete early in the second quarter of 2013. Barclays shares were down 0.6 per cent at 221.05p in early morning trading on Tuesday. ING shares were down 0.7 per cent at €6.42.