ING Group traces its roots to two major Insurance companies in the Netherlands and the banking services of the Dutch government. In 1845 the fire insurance company the Assurantie Maatschappij tegen Brandschade de Nederlanden van 1845 (Fire insurance Company the Netherlands from 1845) was founded and grew to be the first insurance company with branches outside the Netherlands. By 1900 it had over 139 agencies all over the world. Two decades later in 1863 the life insurance company Nationale Levensverzekerings Bank (National Life Insurance Bank) was founded in Rotterdam. These two insurance companies would merge in 1963 to form the combined insurance company the Nationale-Nederlanden. The combined insurance company would expand significantly during the 1970s and 1980s.[7] In 1881 the Dutch government created the Rijkspostspaarbank a postal savings bank to encourage workers to start saving. In 1918 the Dutch government created the Postcheque and Girodienst services allowing working families to make payments via Dutch post offices. Separately in 1927 the Dutch government initiated a reorganisation of Dutch banks and the Nederlandsche Middenstands Bank (NMB) was formed. The NMB focused on retail banking in the Netherlands and abroad. In 1986 the post office banking services were privatised as Postbank N.V. and three years later it would merge with NMB bank to form NMB Postbank. After changes in regulation that allowed banks and insurance businesses to work together, in 1991 the banking business of NMB Postbank and the insurance business of Nationale-Nederlanden were merged to create ING Group. ING Group expanded its international business through a number of acquisitions through the 1990s including the Belgium bank BBL in 1998. In 1995 ING Groups investment banking business was significantly boosted when it took over Barings Bank after its dramatic failure. While expanding its retail banking business overseas, rather than create a branch network, it used the direct banking business it had develop with NMB Postbank to launch an overseas direct banking businesses called ING Direct. The first of these was set up in Canada in 1997. The no frills high rate savings accounts that could only be accessed on-line were successful and spawned a number of similar services from rival banks. As part of the Dutch governments response to the late-2000s financial crisis ING Group, together with all other major banks in the Netherlands, took a capital injection from the Dutch Government in 2008. This was to support the banks and to increase INGs capital ratio above 8%. As a condition of Dutch state aid, the EU demanded a number of changes to the company structure. This resulted in divestiture of a number of businesses around the world, such insurance businesses in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The capital was paid back by to the Dutch government in Dec 2009.