Dutch financial group ING is asking some company managers to give back their bonus payments for 2008, its chief executive said in an interview with a Dutch newspaper on Monday.

We are asking the top 1,200 to give up their bonuses, ING's chief executive Jan Hommen told Dutch daily De Volkskrant. This is a moral appeal, he said.

ING paid about 300 million euros in bonuses to about 40,000 employees in 2008, but Hommen said it would be impossible to scrap them all.

He also said the firm would currently not pay any bonuses to employees for 2009.

ING's executive board bonuses for 2008 were scrapped when the Dutch government injected 10 billion euros ($13.7 billion) of capital into the financial group last October.

It has also said it will not pay bonuses to the executive board until a new remuneration policy is set.

(Reporting by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Hans Peters)

($1=.7302 Euro)

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