Robust quarter of trading at Virgin Money UK

Virgin Money UK has today confirmed its trading in the three months to 31 December 2019 was in line with Board expectations, despite a “difficult” market.

The business reports customer deposit growth in quarter one of 1.6% to £64.8bn.

The quarter also saw mortgage book reduction of 0.8% to £59.6bn, along with business lending growth of 2.5% to £8.1bn.

During the same period, there was personal lending growth of 3.7% to £5.2bn, primarily due to high quality credit card growth.

David Duffy, chief executive officer, said: “The Group continues to perform well. In a difficult market, our own performance has remained on track and we continue to make strong progress on our ambition to disrupt the status quo.

“We are attracting relationship deposits and delivering growth in customer balances across business and personal, while maintaining our discipline in a competitive mortgage market.

“We have also now delivered on our commitment to lend £6bn to SMEs over the three years to the end of 2019, with £6.5bn lent in total.

“This included lending of £1.3bn in Scotland, £0.9bn in Yorkshire, £0.9bn in the North West and £0.5bn in the Midlands, demonstrating our support for SMEs across the regions of the UK.

 “While sentiment improved following December’s election result, the UK banking market continues to face competitive pressures and uncertainty over the final Brexit settlement.

“However, we continue to focus on supporting our customers in their everyday lives, delivering on our strategic priorities and meeting our medium-term financial targets.”