The Amsterdam-based multinational banking and financial services corporation ING was formed from several companies. The lion appearing in the current ING logo was present in the emblems of those companies, too – hardly a surprise, taking into consideration that they originate from the Netherlands, where lion is the state symbol. One more detail to remind of ING’s Dutch roots is the color of the lion – orange is the color of the Netherlands.
The Rijkspostspaarbank, one of the companies that would later form ING, used the Dutch coat of arms as its emblem. In addition to the two lions, there was a motto, which can be translated into English as “I will maintain”. The use of the country’s coat of arms was quite reasonable taking into consideration that the company was owned by the government.
One more company to form ING was the Nederlandsche Middenstandsbank. It also used the Dutch coat of arms as its symbol on the stationery and official documents.
At the period when Rijkspostspaarbank and the Postcheque- & Girodienst were merging to form Postgiro/Rijkspostbankspaarbank, the logo was modified more than once. Instead of the rampant lion, a more quite, recumbent one appeared. There was a bit more weight on it, and its tail was longer.
Both the insurance companies to form ING, De Nederlanden van 1845 and the Nationale Levensverzekering-Bank, had a lion-based logo. The former used the country’s coat of arms as its emblem, while the latter used an image of a virgin with a lion, which was supposed to mean that the company does everything in its power to secure the savings deposits of its clients.
In spring 2013 ING announced that its US department will get a new identity. It was to be renamed Voya and get a new logo instead of the iconic lion symbol. This looked quite reasonable, taking into consideration that half a year before that the ING Direct USA bank was sold to Capital One. However, the Voya emblem still features the orange color, which reminds the color of the original lion logo.
The current version of the ING insignia features the Times New Roman typeface. All the characters are capitals. The ING Postbank Groep has a different font, a sans-serif one.
The orange color of the emblem reminds of the company’s Dutch origins, as well as the fact that it appeared under the House of Orange-Nassau (a branch of the European House of Nassau playing a leading role in the Netherlands). The ING insignia is made in a contrasting shade of blue-violet.