LONDON: Virgin Money and TSB are expected to launch products for small and medium-sized businesses in the coming months, joining the ranks of Metro Bank.
Virgin has hired George Ashworth, a prominent figure in UK asset finance who previously worked at rival challenger Aldermore and ABN Amro, to lead its development of SME banking.
Jayne-Anne Gadhia , chief executive of the Richard Branson-backed lender, said in July that Virgin’s brand was “very appealing to SME business owners” and that the bank had put together a team to explore opportunities in this space.
TSB, which was acquired this year by Banco Sabadell in a £1.6bn deal, is also seeking to grow in small business banking. The challenger, previously part of Lloyds Banking Group, one of the top three small business lenders by volume, has only about 100,000 business customers.
Sabadell’s chief financial officer Tomás Varela says that he wants to expand TSB into business banking as soon as possible. “We are trying to identify opportunities for boosting business banking and for SMEs ahead of full platform implementation,” he says, referring to migrating TSB on to its technology systems by the end of 2017.
