AIB Bank Logo (Noahs Ark)

It's "Allied Irish Banks PLC", so called because way back at the dawn of time - OK, in 1966 - it merged the Provincial Bank of Ireland, the Royal Bank of Ireland and the Munster and Leinster Bank. For a number of years the three banks continued to trade under their own names, but using a common logo - a circle divided in three (like the Mercedes symbol) with the letter "A" in the middle. From about 1970 all three banks rebranded as "Allied Irish Banks".

Then about 1990 they rebranded as "AIB Bank" or just "AIB" in the Republic and "First Trust" in NI (the separate NI brand was discontinued a few years ago) and it was at this time they adopted the Noah's Ark logo. They tweaked it a bit about 5 years ago, simplifying the design and colour palette.

I don't know if they ever said why they thought an ark was an appropriate symbol for a bank — safe haven in time of threat, maybe? Whatever, they were quite keen on the ark as a concept; when they established a life insurance company in 1991 they called it Ark Life.

The Bank of Ireland logo resembles the fletching or fin of an arrow. LIke AIB, Bank of Ireland as we know came from the 1960s merger of three banks - the original Bank of Ireland, the Hibernian Bank and the National Bank. The fletching has three rows, representing the three merged banks.