(Bloomberg) -- The question at the biggest Dutch bank has suddenly become: who will lead it?

ING Groep Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers late Wednesday announced he will step down after almost 30 years at the firm to join Swiss bank UBS AG later in the year, sparking a guessing game among executives and investors about his successor.

“While there is a clear key man risk, we note that ING has a deep management bench,” Citigroup Inc. analysts led by Stefan Nedialkov wrote in a note Thursday.

ING declined to comment on Hamers’s replacement, beyond saying that it will give information “if and when appropriate.”

Hamers is widely regarded as the force behind a digitalization push that has made the bank a model for many other European lenders. But his tenure has been increasingly overshadowed by a money-laundering scandal that led to a $900 million fine and costly expansion of the bank’s compliance and anti-financial crime units.

He officially leaves the lender on June 30, putting pressure on ING to find a successor soon.

Caught Unaware

The loss of Hamers “is a setback for ING, coming as the bank struggles with a lending slowdown and earnings downgrades,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Philip Richards said in a note. “ING appears to have been caught unaware.”

Chief Risk Officer Steven van Rijswijk would be a “logical choice” as a speedy internal replacement that keeps the bank focused on cost-cutting and the potential for more capital return, said Mediobanca analyst Robin van den Broek. Van Rijswijk has recently filled in for Hamers in a high-profile appearance at the Dutch Parliament.

Hamers has presided over a 21.5% increase in ING’s share price since he took the top job in October 2013. That compares with a decline of 19.8% for the STOXX European bank index. Yet he was a lightning rod for criticism of banker pay in the Netherlands, despite being paid far less than his European counterparts. Those developments may have been factors in his decision to join UBS, the Citi analysts wrote.

News of Hamers’ move broke hours after ING abruptly pulled the sale of a risky bond earlier Wednesday, saying only it had received new information it needed to process first.

--With assistance from Lukas Strobl.

To contact the reporters on this story: Steven Arons in Frankfurt at sarons@bloomberg.net;Ruben Munsterman in Amsterdam at rmunsterman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Marion Dakers, Ross Larsen

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