Dutch banks ING and ABN Amro continued to invest in arms companies, which make controversial cluster bombs, in 2005 despite promising to stop, says Network Vlanderen. The Belgian organisation monitors arms trade funding.

ABN Amro, ING and Fortis were part of syndicates which lent €1.5bn to French-Dutch defence group Thales and €3bn to European defence company EADS in 2005, the organisation said.
Last week, 46 countries, including the Netherlands, pledged to work towards a ban on cluster bombs which spread tiny bombs over a large area and have a very high civilian casualty rate.