MADRID (Reuters) - Dutch bank ING plans to set up its new investment banking unit's European headquarters in Madrid, Spanish daily Cinco Dias reported on Wednesday.

The Dutch bank, present in Spain since 1999, has focused in recent years on growing in corporate banking, whose revenues rose 21% in 2023 to 208 million euros ($224 million).

The project is still at an initial stage, although the decision to locate this new hub in Madrid is firm, the paper said, without quoting sources.

ING, which in Spain has 1,700 employees, of whom 150 work in the corporate and investment banking unit, declined to comment.

The size of the staff for the hub has not yet been determined, the paper said.

The new centre would start operating at the end of this year or the beginning of next, Cinco Dias said.

The bank is currently finalising the details and has begun the first stages of recruitment for this new centre, such as vice presidents, associates and analysts, the paper added.

($1 = 0.9302 euros)

(Reporting by Jesús Aguado, editing by Inti Landauro)