Member Article

Newcastle’s Virgin Money enjoys ‘excellent first half’ as pretax profits soar 70% to £93.7m

Newcastle bank Virgin Money has enjoyed a strong first half to the year, reporting a 70.4% statutory pretax profit increase compared to the first half of 2015.

With figures soaring from £55m to £93.7m, the company showed growth across all areas of its core business.

With mortgage balances undergoing a 9% increase to £27.7bn and gross mortgage lending 19% up to £4.3bn, coupled with a 29% net lending rise to £2.2bn, Virgin performed strongly across the board.

Moreover, credit card balances increased to £2.1bn, a rise of 31% on last year, whilst the firm’s retail deposit balances increased by 8% to £27.1bn.

Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Chief Executive, spoke of her ‘delight’ in reporting what she described as an ‘excellent first half for Virgin Money’.

“We continued to grow the business strongly and have delivered a 53 per cent increase in underlying profit as a result of our increased share of the mortgage market and the continued success of our credit card business.”

The firm also declared itself to be in a strong position to deal with a period of post-referendum uncertainty, revealing it has experienced continued strong customer demand since the vote to leave the EU.

Gadhia added: “Virgin Money is in a strong position to deal with a period of post-referendum uncertainty as a low risk retail bank with a high-quality asset base and unburdened by legacy conduct issues.

“We remain on track to achieve our target of £3 billion of high quality credit card balances by the end of 2017 and remain focused on maintaining the high-quality of our mortgage business.

“We look to the future with confidence and will continue to drive our customer-focused strategy of growth, quality and returns.”

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