Virgin Money to enter the UK's small business banking market

Launching an SME savings account in January 2018

Virgin Money today announced plans to enter into small business banking as it set its sights on securing £5bn of SME deposits within five years in a bid to capitalise on an “attractive, but poorly served market”.

One of the largest of a new breed of ‘challenger’ banks that launched in Britain after the 2008 financial crisis, Virgin Money announced that it would launch an SME savings account in January 2018 as a first step towards offering more products to business customers.

Plans to push into the small business banking sector had previously been shelved following Brexit leave vote.

However, shares fell more than 4 per cent in morning trading after the company warned that its annual share of gross lending would be at the lower end of its 3% to 3.5% forecast.

But boss Jayne-Anne Gadhia said the “UK economy has remained resilient” and the firm was “delighted to announce the start of our journey into SME banking”.

Virgin Money also laid out plans for its “digital bank”, a platform due to start a trial in the second half of 2018.