Amsterdam  - Dutch bank and insurance company ING Group suffered a loss of 3.7 billion euros (4.67 billion dollars) in 2008, the company said in its final Q4 report published on Wednesday.

Last year in the same period, ING still made a profit of 2.4 billion euros.

Net loss for all of 2008 amounted to 729 million euros, compared with a net profit of 9.2 billion euros for 2007.

Wednesday's results confirm ING's preliminary report released in January. ING then announced a drastic cost-saving operation that would include the cutting of some 7,000 jobs globally, 2,700 of which in the Netherlands. (dpa)