Virgin Money Australia is an Australian financial services company owned by Bank of Queensland, and has 150,000 customers.

History

Foundation

In 2003, Virgin Money was launched in Australia with the launch of Virgin Money

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

s. Virgin Money Australia initially launched in partnership with

Macquarie Bank Macquarie Group Limited () is an Australian global financial services group. Headquartered and listed in Australia (), Macquarie employs more than 17,000 staff in 33 markets, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia's t ...

, followed by

Westpac Westpac Banking Corporation, known simply as Westpac, is an Australian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered at Westpac Place in Sydney, New South Wales. Established in 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales, ...

under a five-year agreement. At the time of Virgin Money's launch in Australia the group company that combined the UK and Australian operations was co-owned by

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding co ...

and HHG Group. In 2004 100% ownership of that UK/Australia group company was acquired by Virgin Group for

AU$ The Australian dollar ( sign: $; code: AUD) is the currency of Australia, including its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island. It is officially used as currency by three independent Pacific Isla ...

219 million.

First products

It added superannuation (2005) and home loans (2008) to their product suite. The card was Australia's first no annual fee credit card. The card was marketed as a cheaper option to most other credit cards with up to 55 interest-free days and an interest rate of 12.99% (April 2007). Customers were entitled to offers through the credit card's 'Mates rates' scheme, which included offers from other Virgin companies in Australia such as Virgin Blue,

Virgin Mobile Virgin Mobile is a wireless communications brand used by seven independent brand-licensees worldwide. Virgin Mobile branded wireless communications services are available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Kuwait, Saudi Ara ...

and

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and ...

. A comprehensive restaurant discount scheme, operated by the Entertainment Book company, was also available. The Virgin Credit Card was withdrawn from sale in Australia as of 3 April 2008 after the five-year agreement with Westpac came to an end. Customers could continue to use their cards as normal, but no new Virgin credit cards would be issued. When a customer's card expired, they were transitioned to the 'Ignite' card by Westpac.

Changes to product ranges

In 2008, Virgin Money Australia withdrew its home loan product from the Australian market due to the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the credit cards portfolio was transferred to its supplier,

, after the end of a five-year agreement. In 2009, Virgin Money launched car insurance, partnering with A&G Insurance Services and also announced their strategic alliance with CitiBank, with plans to launch a suite of retail banking services in 2010. Virgin Money credit cards were relaunched in Australia on 27 July 2010 with two card types: the Velocity Rewards Credit Card, co-branded with Velocity Frequent Flyer, and the No Annual Fee Credit Card. All credit cards are also co-branded with Visa credit card.

Purchase by Bank of Queensland

In 2013 Virgin Money Australia was bought by Bank of Queensland for $40 million. Under the deal, Bank of Queensland have rights to the Virgin Money name in Australia for four decades while paying royalties to the Virgin Group, and Virgin has a seat on the board of Bank of Queensland.

References

External links

* {{Banking in Australia Virgin Money 2003 establishments in Australia Banks established in 2003 Peer-to-peer lending companies