Q1 2021 CASS Stats

Once you’ve opened one account with Starling, it’s trivial to open another one. I’d bet money that plenty of business users sooner or later tap the Personal account application button, out of curiosity if nothing else

1 Like

This is true.

The “default” for new customers is still Clydesdale to this day, and the legal entirety that owns Virgin Money is still Clydesdale Bank Plc.

The only exception to this is if you were an existing Yorkshire Bank customer: in that case, your account would be opened in the Yorkshire side of the business (even if branded Virgin).

The speculation is that this was done to protect Clydesdale’s note-issuing rights in Scotland; these rights can be reassigned if a business restructures as NatWest has just done with Ulster Bank, but it’s a court-ordered procedure so there is hassle involved. Clydesdale obviously decided not to bother - so it has become, in effect, a “reverse-merger” with Clydesdale rebranding itself as Virgin Money and then absorbing the old Virgin Money.

Yorkshire Bank was already legally part of Clydesdale (it was effectively a sub-brand) so no changes there.

The confusion is that old Virgin Money did have a current account product too, but it has already been phased out. It was only a basic current account and required largely branch-based operation.

They may look to do a bit of tidying up once the full rebrand is complete, but that is how things stand currently.

3 Likes

Good, glad I’m not losing it, seems 12.5k people were happy to switch for free wine at Christmas!

1 Like

Woah - free :wine_glass:? Where?, I’m in…

1 Like

The pre Christmas deal

And the current offer

2 Likes

I think you can’t be an existing Yorkshire/Clydesdale (or “new Virgin Money”) customer to get the deal, but otherwise a few hoops to jump through equals free wine!

Bit more in-depth data (same topic though)

1 Like