A plan to cut 7,000 job cuts by ING Group in order to invest in its digital platforms has drawn swift criticism from European labour unions, Reuters reports. ING said it would invest €800 million in its technology platform, to be rolled out over the next five years in Spain, Italy, France, Austria and the Czech Republic. Those countries are mature, "challenger" markets, where there are dominant incumbent banks and ING is looking to grow mostly by online banking, with few physical offices, according to Reuters. The Asia Pacific syndicated loan market continued to shrink in the first nine months of 2016, reports Thomson Reuters. Limited credit demand in the region (ex-Japan) saw syndicated lending drop 8.7 per cent during this period to US$334 billion, the lowest nine-month volume since 2013. The total number of deals also decreased by 11 per cent to 925 deals year-on-year with only 225 completed in the third quarter, the lowest quarterly deal count in six years. Although Australia still ranked third in terms of sub-regional loan volume issued the market suffered a 29 per cent drop to US$40.7 billion due to subdued every day and project financing.