Member Article

Virgin Money delivers ‘market-beating’ growth as profits soar to £138m

Newcastle bank Virgin Money has enjoyed a significant jump in pretax profits, as the firm saw profits soar to £138m last year.

The impressive figures were revealed this morning in the bank’s first full yearly results since it was listed on the stock market, and represent a fourfold increase on the £34m it posted in 2014.

The bank, which absorbed the ailing Northern Rock in 2007, also posted ‘market-beating’ growth across its retail (£25.1bn), credit card (£1.6bn) and mortgage (£25.5bn) balances.

Commenting on today’s figures, Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Chief Executive at Virgin Money, said: “I am delighted to report a 53 per cent increase in underlying profit for 2015 which ended the year at £160.3 million.

“We have performed strongly against our objectives, including delivering market-beating growth in our core mortgages, savings and credit card businesses, maintaining the quality of our balance sheet and delivering a customer satisfaction rating among the highest scoring retail banks in the UK.

Jayne-Anne was particularly pleased with the bank’s mortgage balance growth, which grew to £25.5bn and, at an increase of 16% on the previous year, significantly outstripped wider market growth of just under 2%.

She added: “Growth in our mortgage book outpaced the market as we continued to support demand for housing in the UK. Our savings franchise continued to flourish and deposit balances are now higher than at any point in our history.

“The success of our new credit card business, following the successful migration of credit card accounts to our own platform, means we now expect to grow card balances to at least £3 billion by the end of 2017, a year earlier than planned.

“We will continue to put our customers at the heart of everything we do and look to the future with confidence.”