ING's future look taking shape
The future look of ING, now it is fully owned by ANZ became a little clearer yesterday.
Thursday, March 25th 2010, 7:33AM 
2 Comments
Under the acquisition deal ANZ has use of the ING name for 12 months, until November this year when it has to rename the business.
ANZ has decided that the specialist wealth businesses will be best positioned for success with its own distinct brand identity, name and logo and with strong endorsement as part of the broader ANZ Group.
Many had thought the business would simply come under the ANZ brand.
"The decision to continue with a specialist brand identity has been an important one for ANZ and for the ING wealth businesses," ANZ chief executive Jenny Fagg says.
"Fundamentally, it recognises that successful wealth businesses need to be positioned as specialists in the eyes of customers and of key intermediaries such as financial planners."
She says the decision also supports the bank's strategy to grow its wealth business.
"(It) will place us in a strong position to deepen the relationship with our customers and grow distribution through the independent financial advisers and aligned adviser channels. "
The bank is now working a new name, brand and visual identity for ING.
ANZ already operates a "family of brands" including The National Bank, UDC, Bonus Bonds, EFTPOS New Zealand and Direct Broking.
ANZ will continue to operate its Private Banking and Wealth business and ING New Zealand will remain a wholly-owned subsidiary of ANZ New Zealand.
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Meaningless bank speak. ANZ stood by and watched on as its half-owned joint venture partner, ING, to throw savers money into Frankenstein Finance inventions such as synthetic collateralised debt obligations (CDO) with their embedded credit default swaps (“the killer derivative”, according to former investment banker Satyajit Das) and CDO-squareds, which are CDOs of CDOs and thus highly leveraged and highly dangerous; and then telling savers that these were low-risk investments.
ANZ kept selling the DYF and RIF in spite of the fact that ING went and bought into perilous 2006 and 2007-vintage CDOs, which were financial landmines.
This wasn’t banking. It was gambling, purely and simply. Which is why neither ANZ nor ING dare enter open discussion on the issue.
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Whilst ANZ is contractually required to banish the ING name (not a bad thing), it would be wise to quickly replace those ING folks responsible for getting them into the mess that they are presently in. Anything short of this would signal to consumers and the industry alike that ANZ endorses ING’s past actions. In this current environment, that outcome would make it difficult (near impossible) for ANZ to achieve its wealth management objectives.