Virgin Money has reported a 53 per cent rise in pre-tax underlying profits for its first full financial year since listing on the stock market.
Growth in its mortgages, saving and credit card businesses saw profit before tax hit £160.3m in 2015, up from £104.8m in the previous year.
Virgin Money chief executive Jayne-Anne Ghadia said the strong performance was led by demand for mortgages, as the UK housing market continues to draw buyers.
In 2015, gross mortgage lending was 29 per cent higher than the previous year with total mortgage lending being £7.5 billion, a 2 per cent share of the total market.
Currently the mortgage portfolios consist of 83 per cent residential and 17 per cent buy to let mortgages.
Ghadia added Vigin Money’s savings business also performed well: “Our savings franchise continued to flourish and deposit balances are now higher than at any point in our history.”
Virgin Money’s Savings sector saw deposits increase by 12 per cent in 2015.
Financial performance of the credit card portfolio increased by 13 per cent with overall contribution being £51.2 million on 31 December 2015 with credit card balances increasing by 44 per cent over the course of the year to £1.6 billion.
“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,” Ghadia said.
