Jan 09
Virgin shook the British banking market
The crisis is "British banking sector is not that unhappy. With benefit of growing discontent of the English against their traditional banks, Richard Branson, the exuberant creator of the Virgin empire, announced Friday the acquisition of a small regional bank in England, the Church House Trust, with plans to launch Virgin Bank before the end of the year. The acquisition received Friday, the blessing of Constable UK financial sector, the FSA.
The target of Virgin is very modest compared to industry giants. The takeover of the bank based in Yeovil, Somerset, costing only 12.3 million pounds (13.7 million euros).But mostly it allows the financial arm of Virgin to obtain a license for retail banking in Britain, which he was still lacking.
Virgin Money, which claims 2.5 million customers in the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and South Africa, offers services of credit and savings accounts on the Internet, through partnerships with institutions like Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of America. Virgin Money has justified the choice of Church House Trust explaining that the bank had a very solid, with twice as many deposits (50 million pounds) in its coffers than loans (25 million pounds).
"The financial crisis has tarnished the reputations of several British banks, and Virgin Money will offer a different and better approach to the bank, said Friday Jayne-Anne Gadhia, boss of Virgin Money.
Bank charges challenged
With its excellent public image in areas as diverse as aviation, telephony and mobile Internet, the Virgin Group has a good card to play against the giants jostled both by the financial crisis and by repeated attacks from consumer associations and the policeman of the competition (Office of Fair Trading, OFT). These groups challenge bank charges consistently very high, including penalties for overdrafts.
Richard Branson tried to come into force on the market for retail banking two years ago, making an offer to buy Northern Rock, which had virtually collapsed in 2007, but after several months of hesitation, the government had decided to nationalize.
Despite this setback, Branson still keeps an eye on the Newcastle bank, which was one of the five biggest players for mortgages in Britain, and with healthy activities should soon be sold by the government. In agreement with the European competition, the British state should also require banks it has saved, RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, to divest a significant portion of their branch networks to new entrants in the sector. Opportunities for which are already in the running Virgin Money, the Spanish bank Santander, National Australia Bank and the giant British supermarket Tesco.
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