Home loans help Virgin Money up growth pace

VIRGIN Money yesterday reported accelerating growth in the third quarter of the year with mortgage lending leading the way.

The challenger bank, which has a major base in Edinburgh employing about 200 people, highlighted a market share of new mortgage applications of around 4.5 per cent in the three months to the end of September.

Mortgage completions were 19 per cent higher than the average of the first two quarters and the total mortgage book increased by 3 per cent to £20.9 billion at the end of the quarter.

Retail deposit balances rose by over 3 per cent to £21.8bn and credit card balances remained slightly ahead of expectations, ending the quarter at around £1bn.

Chief executive Jayne-Anne Gadhia said: “Following a very strong performance in the first half of the year, we have accelerated our growth in the third quarter of the year, while continuing to build a high quality balance sheet to deliver increasing returns to our shareholders.

“Looking to the future, we have a powerful brand, a strong balance sheet, a strong core business franchise and considerable opportunities to continue to extend our product range. The business has performed strongly in 2014 to-date and we are confident that we can continue to deliver progress against our strategy as we continue to grow the business.”

Referring to the new leverage ratio framework announced yesterday, she noted that the bank operates “in excess of the recommended requirements”.

The company, which postponed its flotation last month, added it had continued to make good progress towards setting up an in-house credit card operation.