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ING (DiBa) portfolio tracker: benchmark your ING (DiBa) portfolio against the S&P 500

We rebuild an ING history in Germany out of the exported account and depot rows and set the result against an index in euros. The account export is matched by our German bank profile on its booking date, transaction type and amount headings, so those columns are read without a question being asked. The profile follows the documented format rather than a broad set of real files, and a savings plan produces many small rows, so the first import deserves one comparison with the bank's own overview.

What the file contains

A German bank export is a booking list. Every row has a booking date, a transaction type, a text describing what happened and an amount that is negative when money left the account. Where securities are involved, the ISIN and the number of units are carried in columns of their own, and that is what allows a booking to be attached to a holding rather than to a description.

The structure suits a savings plan well. Each execution is a dated purchase with its own price, and dozens of them together build an average cost that no single transaction reveals. Tax debits, whether on dividends or on the fund holdings themselves, appear as money leaving and are treated as cash flows rather than as a loss of value. Charges are read as fees, so a year of costs becomes a figure instead of a feeling.

The export comes as CSV or XLSX, and we read the file as it is: no renaming, no reformatting, no cleaning up in a spreadsheet first. The columns we look for in this export are Buchungstag, Umsatzart, Buchungstext, Betrag, ISIN and Stück.

How the import works for ING (DiBa)

ING (DiBa) is recognised through a column profile: we know the header names its export uses. That profile follows the documented format rather than a large set of real files, so if a header has been renamed you point at the column once and we save the mapping.

We do not print a click path here, because menu names move between releases and a wrong one costs you more time than no one at all. Look for the transaction history or the account statement of your ING (DiBa) account and take the machine-readable version of it over the PDF.

Two habits make this file behave. Export as far back as the interface will go rather than the year to date, because a savings plan running for five years has five years of purchases behind its average price. And take the securities side and the money side both, since a booking list without depot rows leaves your quantities to be inferred. Where the range is capped, export in blocks and upload all of them; a later export that covers the same period again replaces what that period held instead of doubling it.

What to watch for with ING (DiBa) files

Savings plan executions. A monthly plan produces a purchase every month at whatever the price was, frequently for a fractional number of units. That is the normal shape of this file, and each execution counts as a separate dated cash flow.

Tax as a booking. Tax withheld on investment income and tax charged on the fund holdings themselves both appear as debits. They reduce your cash rather than the value of your holdings, and treating them as a fall in value would misstate the return.

German headings. The column names are German, so a file that opens with Buchungstag and Umsatzart at the top is the expected one. Those headings are also how the profile recognises it.

One brand, two countries. The Dutch ING platform produces a different file with different headings and is covered on its own page. Accounts in both countries are exported separately and uploaded as two files.

What you see after the upload

Your file becomes a verdict first: your time-weighted return next to the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 over the same period, with your own deposits replayed into the index so both sides carry the same timing. Under it sit your positions with their cost basis, the dividends you received and the income your holdings are expected to pay, your allocation across positions and currencies, and a year report you can keep for your records.

For an ING account in Germany the yearly report tends to be the useful screen, because tax debits and fund charges only become visible as a total once a full year is in.

You can look at all of that on the demo portfolio before you upload anything of your own. The first two weeks are free and no card is asked for.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the profile sometimes not recognise my file? Because it checks the headings exactly and refuses to guess. A different export view, a renamed column or a report rather than a transaction list will not match, and the file then goes to the route where you assign the columns yourself. That is the safer failure: a profile that guessed could import wrong data without ever saying so.

How are savings plan purchases treated? As ordinary purchases, one per execution, each with its own date, price and quantity. Nothing is averaged before it reaches us. The average cost of the holding is then calculated from all of them together, which is the figure telling you what the plan actually paid rather than what the most recent execution happened to cost.

Does a tax debit reduce my return? It reduces your cash rather than your holding. The charge is booked as money leaving the account, so it shows up as a cost in the year it was taken, while the value of the fund itself is unchanged by it. Reading it as a fall in value would understate the fund and overstate the effect of tax.

Is this the same page as ING in the Netherlands? No. The Dutch platform is a different system with a Dutch export and it has a page of its own. If you have held both, export each and upload the two files; every row keeps the currency it was written in, and the German and the Dutch history end up in one overview without either of them overwriting the other.