Yesterday I got an email from Sharebuilder letting me know that they have been acquired by ING DIRECT. ING Direct is the American banking subsidiary of Dutch-based insurance and banking giant ING Groep NV. I am pretty sure that all Sharebuilder’s customers got this email as well.

Sharebuilder is one of my favorite online brokers and I usually recommend it to Coolinvesting readers, who are mostly beginner investors, mainly because Sharebuilder has no minimum balance to open an account and no inactivity fees.

Time will tell what kind of change this will bring to over 661,000 Sharebuilder’s customers (including myself, and I am sure many of you) who hold over 2 million accounts.

It is still not know what will hapepen to Sharebuilder’s 170 employees, but considering that that the company is looking for a larger office space in downtown Bellevue, it looks like they are about to expand even more.

This acquisition is in line with ING Direct’s aim to become the world’s most preferred consumer bank by expanding geographically and developing its product range, while focusing on growing its mortgage business and investment services,” said Dick Harryvan, ING Group executive board member and CEO of ING Direct, in a statement.

ING paid $220 million to acquire Sharebuilder.