ING Bulgaria officially launched its pension insurance business in the country last Thursday, announcing the acquisition of Solidarnost.

During a press conference, Peter Rolls, country manager for ING Bulgaria, explained the recent desire of ING Group to become a leading provider of integrated financial services throughout Europe.

"We were concerned for ourselves, that in order to develop in Bulgaria, we needed to have our own retail platform - that ideally would be retail banking and pension service," explained Rolls. "We want to be as much of a one stop shop, as a group in Bulgaria, as we can."

In seeking out a pension insurance provider, Rolls said size was not an issue. "We were much more interested in buying something that was well managed, had solid sound procedures, and was easy to understand. Solidarnost met all of these requirements."

ING Group now owns 70 per cent of the Bulgarian company, which has been renamed ING Pension Insurance Company. Doverie Capital AD maintains the outstanding 30 per cent. ING will increase its holding by injecting further capital into the company. Within 18 months, they intend to become the sole owners.

ING Bulgaria and ING Pension Insurance Company will operate as two separate entities, but maintain close working ties.

"This is a crucial step," said Rolls. "It enables the group in Bulgaria not only to add a range of products and services into the retail sector, both through the bank and the pension insurance company, but also it allows us to offer more to our corporate clients."

He explained that this service would enable employers to rethink the way they remunerate their employees. "Staff remuneration is typically a salary and a bonus, simply. By combining the products of the pension company and of the bank, the remuneration package can be changed very considerably.

"This is something we are very enthusiastic about."