I just got this e-mail from Sharebuilder about being acquired by the ING group and will be added to their ING Direct division.
ShareBuilder has some important news. As of November 15, ShareBuilder has been acquired by ING DIRECT, the nation’s largest direct bank with over 5.5 million customers and $75 billion in U.S. assets (part of Netherlands-based ING, NYSE: ING). ING DIRECT shares our vision of helping Americans increase their savings.
Rest assured there have been no changes made to your ShareBuilder account. You can continue to use the same account number, login and password, and can access your account anytime at sharebuilder.com. Over the next few weeks, you’ll begin to see ShareBuilder adopt ING DIRECT’s signature Orange color. The biggest enhancements in store for you will be in the expanded assortment of financial offerings available to you from ING DIRECT, including savings, checking, and mortgages.
We look forward to sharing more information with you over the coming months. If you have any questions, we invite you to contact us at 1-800-747-2537.
Best regards,
Dan Greenshields
President
ShareBuilder Securities Corporation
This is actually the second time that a company I use has been acquired by ING. The first was Netbank, but that was due to their bankruptcy and my $2 or so was transferred over to ING since it was insured by the FDIC.
However I do have my Roth IRA and a regular portfolio at Sharebuilder so I’m wondering what happens besides adopting the signature orange color. Will transfers between my ING Direct electric orange checking and roth IRA be faster? Also will the trading prices come down considerably at Sharebuilder?
I received the same email and I’m wondering the same questions. I happen to use both ING and ShareBuilder, so I’m hoping that they either continue to operate (at least in the customers perception) as two separate firms, or that they provide some option to merge my two accounts into one.
Both do have a nice, “easy investing” type of approach, so I think both have mass appeal in that sense. Certainly ING’s brand is much larger, so perhaps the SB side can leverage some good exposure here to help drive their accounts.