ING becomes Voya Financial

Well, it's official: ING U.S. Inc., an insurance, investment and retirement services provider, is now Voya Financial Inc. The financial services giant's name change is only the latest step in a large scale re-branding effort that's been going on since November 2012, when its Dutch parent ING Groep NV said it would spin off the U.S. unit in an initial public offering. ING U.S. debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on May 2, 2013, as VOYA. Today is the first day that ING U.S. will market itself as Voya on press materials and other items. On May 1, ING U.S. Investment Management will follow, re-branding to Voya Investment Management, and its employee benefits business will operate under the Voya moniker. On Sept. 1, the other ING businesses, including the insurance company and broker-dealer, will start using the Voya brand. ING Financial Partners, the broker-dealer, will become Voya Financial Advisers Inc. The branding effort on the client and distributor level will kick off in May and run through November. “The magnitude of the effort – all of the various legal entities and working with different regulators” is the primary factor behind Voya's decision to stagger its re-branding effort, Ann B. Glover, chief marketing officer at Voya, noted in an interview with InvestmentNews on April 1. The firm not only has about 200 product filings that need to be reviewed with individual states but also 79 legal entity filings with state insurance regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. Re-branding efforts don't stop there: Some 7,000 employee e-mail addresses need to be switched over to Voya, and more than 2,000 building signs need to be updated. One thing that'll hang around from the ING days, however, is the signature orange hue and the Orange Money savings campaign. Last month, the company added a tagline to its Orange Money commercials, indicating that ING U.S. is becoming Voya Financial.