ING DIRECT's New Name Will Be Capital One 360

ING DIRECT finally announced what their new name will be. Effective on February 2013, it will be Capital One 360. They already have the website capitalone360.com that will take the place of ingdirect.com in February. One humorous feature of the current capitalone360.com webpage is that you can pick up a virtual paint roller and change the orange ball into a red 360 ball.

You can read more about this name change at this ING DIRECT FAQs page. The name change was a requirement from Capital One's acquisition of ING DIRECT. According to the FAQ:

As we told you back in June 2011, our parent company - ING Group - agreed to sell ING DIRECT USA as part of a restructuring agreement with the European Commission. ING Group allowed us to use "ING DIRECT" only until February, 2013. So we had to come up with something new.

The FAQs also explain why they chose this new name and the new colors. These details may be a little frustrating to those who are mainly concerned about the interest rate. Capital One 360 has provided a pledge to customers that includes:

We’ll deliver real value. We’ll continue to be home to no-fee, no-minimum checking and savings accounts—with the great rates that we know are important to you.

If we see more rate cuts like we saw in October, I'll be questioning this pledge. And if we just look at the very low ING DIRECT CD rates, it's fair to question this pledge today.

Capital One is now the 6th largest bank in the nation. Other large banks have failed to keep their internet accounts competitive. Some examples include Chase (when they acquired WaMu), Bank of America (when they acquired Countrywide), Citibank, HSBC and M&T Bank (Do you know of others?). I hope Capital One does a better job.

In addition to a name change, there have also been some account changes. I described these changes on Monday.