An ING spokeswoman said it was not yet clear when the restructuring costs would be booked. She said the group was in negotiations with potential partners to outsource the 2,200 positions, but could not give details yet.
ING also said it would not extend contracts for about 1,400 external staff, with 550 of these contracts already ended.
"It is a positive development that ING will further reduce its costs in the mature Benelux market," said Carlo Ponfoort of Delta Lloyd Securities, which rates ING a "buy". "The further cost reductions are positive for future profit growth."
Shares in ING, which focuses on life insurance, retail and wholesale banking in the Benelux, US, Asia and developing markets, rose 0.5 percent to 24.22 euros by 0842 GMT, in line with the benchmark DJ Stoxx European insurance index.
Rabo Securities said in a note the 190 million euros of expected cost savings represented about 2 percent of ING's oveall net profit and said it expected most of the restructuring costs to be taken in 2006.
"Based on this news we see room to increase our estimates, mainly for 2007 and 2008," it said. "ING can achieve a long-term net profit growth of 5-7 percent due to a combination of organic growth and lowering the cost base."
Rabo, which rates ING "outperform", said the stock was attractive given its current low valuation. According to Reuters data, ING is currently trading at about nine times 2006 earnings compared to a sector average of about 11.
ING's Benelux operations and IT banking division currently employs 13,000 people. The spokeswoman said most of the job cuts were in the banking division, but some were in insurance.
The 500 job cuts are in addition to 450 redundancies ING announced in July in its Benelux IT divisions, which it forecast would result in cost reductions of 39 million euros and one-off costs of 57 million, to be taken in the third quarter.
"Both sourcing and streamlining fit in ING's strategy of continually looking for ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency to preserve its competitive position, particularly in the mature Benelux market," said Eli Leenaars, ING Group board member responsible for operations, IT and retail banking.
In September, Dutch bank ABN AMRO sealed one of the largest outsourcing deals in European banking, agreeing to pay five firms 1.8 billion euros to manage its systems.
The ABN deal is set to result in 1,500 redundancies and about 2,200 jobs being transferred to IT companies, generating annual savings of 258 million euros from 2007.