According to the latest financial results from Virgin Money, its application spreads have “improved” during the first quarter, despite customer pricing “trending lower”, but “remained below the spread of maturing balances”.
“The group is trading nimbly to optimise performance, including the launch of our innovative new ‘Fix and Switch’ range, along with our new premium broker service, delivering an enhanced experience and a larger pipeline of recommended cases.
“There are early signs in January that market activity has improved, including market application volumes more in line with 2019 levels within both residential lending and, more recently, buy to let (BTL). Looking ahead, the group expects customer sentiment in mortgages to continue to improve, given the emergence of more positive trends at lower customer rates,” the report added.
Virgin Money said that its market share had stayed stable at 3.5 per cent.
The firm added that its mortgage balances in Q1 2023 had come to £57.1bn, which is slightly down from £57.5bn at the end of 2023. It is also 2.2 per cent lower than in the same period last year.
Virgin Money said its net interest margin (NIM) was stable at 1.89 per cent, and it said it expected it to be “resilient over the remainder of the year, including reduced rate expectations”. The full-year expectations for NIM range from 1.9 per cent to 1.95 per cent.
David Duffy (pictured), Virgin Money’s CEO, said: “We have made a positive start to the year, with strong Q1 results in line with our guidance. We’ve delivered growth in new accounts, deposits and target lending segments, at stable margins and with ongoing cost efficiencies.
“We are encouraged by both our customers’ resilience and improving sentiment in the mortgage market as interest rates have peaked. We carry good momentum into 2024 as we continue to successfully execute our strategy.”
