MSE News: Virgin Money owner Sir Richard Branson vows to improve banking

Jemma-T

Virgin Money owner Sir Richard Branson

He doesn't 'own' that AFAIK. All those investors must love being linked to such a man especially if it fools people (marketing I believe they call that).

Nor Virgin Wines, Virgin Balloon Flights, Virgin Perfume etc etc.

He might on a few bits and pieces but it'll only be some shares in the good stuff (aeorplanes). The rest is just tat except Virgin Media and he owns virtually nothing of that.

http://www.virginballoonflights.co.uk : "...we operate the largest fleet of hot air balloons and are the number one for hot air balloon rides in the UK." I didn't even know there was a number 2 or that there were 'fleets'!

I wouldn't trust Virgin Money any more than I'd trust RBS.

DJ_Mike

Good grief, Richard Branson can spout some right crap. Maybe before he starts trying to "make things better for customers" in banking, he could first address the problem of actually doing it for Virgin Media, a company that has been in existence for far longer! In all the years I've been with them, their customer service has only gotten worse!

C_Mababejive

What rubbish. VM is into this because they got to by Northern Rock cheaply, they are hoping that the Virgin brand will rake in lots of money,pay 2.8% interest minus tax (so thats 2.24% to basic rate taxpayers) and then lend same out at upwards of 7.5%. So with inflation at ,shall we say..5% you are still massively out of pocket.

No...use your money to finance debt..thats what the smart people have been doing for centuries.

Presumably there are some business and banking regulations to prevent VM from lending money to the wider Virgin empire or will that be circumvented via the Cayman Islands or similar..?

callum9999

C_Mababejive wrote: »

What rubbish. VM is into this because they got to by Northern Rock cheaply, they are hoping that the Virgin brand will rake in lots of money,pay 2.8% interest minus tax (so thats 2.24% to basic rate taxpayers) and then lend same out at upwards of 7.5%. So with inflation at ,shall we say..5% you are still massively out of pocket.

No...use your money to finance debt..thats what the smart people have been doing for centuries.

Presumably there are some business and banking regulations to prevent VM from lending money to the wider Virgin empire or will that be circumvented via the Cayman Islands or similar..?

Why wouldn't they be able to lend to the "Virgin Empire"? Obviously it can't just transfer money across, but it's a bank, it can lend money to whoever it wants (barring sanctions etc.).

DJ_Mike wrote: »

Good grief, Richard Branson can spout some right crap. Maybe before he starts trying to "make things better for customers" in banking, he could first address the problem of actually doing it for Virgin Media, a company that has been in existence for far longer! In all the years I've been with them, their customer service has only gotten worse!

He doesn't run Virgin Media so no, he won't address it (though from reading online, it seems universally accepted that they vastly improved after the rebranding). As a hands-on billionaire, I'm sure starting your own bank is much more thrilling than trying to train a bunch of call-centre clones anyway!

Reaper wrote: »

That's kind of my point. What is his unique selling point? No new products are on offer, and First Direct and Metro Bank are already targeting the good customer service angle. To challenge the entrenched banks you need to do something better than them to capture market share. I can't see anything with substance that will achieve that.

Better interest rates would work, but they are costly and therefore tend not to exist alongside other costly measure like longer branch opening hours and good customer service. At least not if you want to make a profit.

Well for starters, you don't need a "unique selling point". Merely existing will get Virgin a load of people signing up (the "coolness" of the brand, something new etc.). Plus bare in mind it's hardly launched yet. With him announcing that he wants to improve banking (I know people whinge about Virgin Planes, but their airlines have certainly done that) I'd imagine they will have some sort of unique selling point in the near future any way.

You're right on interest rate increases being costly to them (though I'm sure the news reported that they vastly increased them to near-top level deals?), but there is still scope for them to be increased while remaining profitable.

First Direct has no high street presence and Metro Bank has the odd branch in London - neither are major threats. If he did go down the great customer service route then, if done well, he could easily outshine those institutions.

DJ_Mike

callum9999 wrote: »

He doesn't run Virgin Media so no, he won't address it (though from reading online, it seems universally accepted that they vastly improved after the rebranding). As a hands-on billionaire, I'm sure starting your own bank is much more thrilling than trying to train a bunch of call-centre clones anyway!

He doesn't run Virgin Money, either, so it's still him spouting the same old rubbish about seeking to improve things as he did with Virgin Media.

flexrider

Could not beleive Virgins top Guy or Boss

near my way people are actully laid off soon for VM and richard jumps to banking now

talk about sinking ships in the night

pqrdef

The day the now-defunct Virgin 1 Freeview channel was launched, Beardy was doing the media rounds saying how they'd scoured the world for the best programmes. Then somebody told him what they were actually going to be showing. The highlight of the opening night was a documentary about penis size. He didn't know.

Branson is a financier, and like most of them, I doubt if he knows anything very much about the products sold by his companies.

Jemma-T

What happened with those flights to outer-space? :eek:

Ah right: http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Richard Branson owns outer-space (he bought it from Homebase).

callum9999

DJ_Mike wrote: »

He doesn't run Virgin Money, either, so it's still him spouting the same old rubbish about seeking to improve things as he did with Virgin Media.

Well no, he doesn't, but the Virgin Group do - so he will presumably be much more involved. Virgin Media on the other had are completely separate and just license the name.

Jemma-T wrote: »

What happened with those flights to outer-space? :eek:

Ah right: http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Richard Branson owns outer-space (he bought it from Homebase).

The project seems to be going along pretty well - BBC did a report on it last year about the time they opened the terminal and were completing tests on the spaceships.

A tad out of my price range though!

Helix

DJ_Mike wrote: »

Good grief, Richard Branson can spout some right crap. Maybe before he starts trying to "make things better for customers" in banking, he could first address the problem of actually doing it for Virgin Media, a company that has been in existence for far longer! In all the years I've been with them, their customer service has only gotten worse!

To be fair Virgin Media's customer service is a million times better than NTL was, it was not unheard of to be on hold for over 2hrs. Now you rarely have to wait on hold, the only downside is that you usually get though to India. If you were a former Telewest customer you would maybe have a different view as they were better than NTL to begin with.