ING Australia has flagged it could terminate some of its $25 billion investment mandates with ING Investment Management (ING IM), saying the expectation was the mandates would be retained "in part" after they expire.

"There is a contract put in place with finite times for those mandates," ING Australia chief investment officer Stewart Brentnall said.

"We will have the responsibility for monitoring those mandates throughout the life of those contracts and beyond to the extent that they are retained, which is certainly expected in part."

ING Australia currently has about $40 billion in funds under management and administration.

Brentnall did not want to say when the mandates expire.

"That information is not open to the public at the moment, but the contract has a reasonable but finite period," Brentnall said.

ING Australia established a research and investment team in February this year following ANZ's acquisition of the remaining stake in the business from ING Group.

Brentnall is responsible for rolling out an investment strategy for ING Australia.

"Historically, this business has relied quite heavily on ING IM as an effective division for much of its investment strategy and planning. That is no longer sensible, or strictly, legally possible," he said.

"Our job is to make sure we provide the right palate of investment opportunities to customers and do so in a way which sources and implements those in an optimal way," he said.

Brentnall will look at the viability of developing asset allocation and portfolio construction capabilities, and is looking to hire staff to take on the added responsibilities.

"The strategy that we are building is looking at all of those phenomena and we are likely to hire in the areas that are not currently there, so capital markets research and modelling, and investment advocacy," he said.