Westpac To Bin Virgin Money Brand

Post by NeilMc on January 23, 2009 · Under banking, credit cards · 2 Comments 

The Virgin Money brand is about to binned in Australia after six years of issuing credit cards. Former Virgin Money Australia CEO David Wakely wrote to card holders last week letting them know that the brand would cease to exist in the coming months and would be replaced by the “Ignite MasterCard” issued by Westpac.

When contacted Mr. Wakeley said he resigned from the company last week and could not comment on whether customer benefits associated with the Virgin-branded card would be preserved by Westpac. Mr. Wakeley added that the letter announcing the changes was written in early January and was sent to 600,000 customers at different stages this month.

The letter which announced the retirement of the credit card brand went on to say that Westpac would ensure that credit services would continue to be provided to customers.

“We’ve loved having you as a customer and now Westpac will continue to take very good care of you,” The letter written by Mr. Wakely said

Ignite MasterCard will continue to carry the same rate of interest as Virgin Money cards and would be priced at 12.99 per cent. The cards would have no annual fee but the Mates Rates rewards program would cease on February 9th. The rewards program gave cardholders discounts on goods and services marketed by merchant partners.

It is believed that the Australian banking major is now planning to attach its own loyalty program to the new card. Westpac acquired the Virgin Money credit card portfolio last year after the global financial crisis created severe funding problems for the company.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Westpac To Bin Virgin Money Brand”

  1. Wiz.au on February 14th, 2009 8:33 am

    This is NOT TRUE. The facts are that the (5 year?) contract with Westpac to supply the “backend” of the Virgin Credit Card to Virgin Money expired TWO YEARS AGO. At that time Virgin Money stopped issuing card to any new customers and continued to supply the service to existing customers. Virgin Money decided not to continue with the contract with Westpac and advised all the customers about this more than a year ago, whicle still supplying services. Existing clients have been using the Virgin Money Credit Card and I have been assured in writing that all fees, charges, and conditions will remain the same for tyhe replacement “Ignite” card from Westpac. I find it hard to beleive that it had anything to do with the recent “GFC”, but Mr. Wakely may have seen the writing on the wall two years ago? But this article is definately very misleading and does not contain all the facts surrounding the Virgin Money withdrawal from the market.

  2. Sharat on February 15th, 2009 1:26 am

    I think you have made an error in your interpratation of the story. These kind of stories do not get wirtten because authors dream them up.

    Virgin Money Portfolio and brand license was acquired by for the consideration of $39 million in April 2008 by Westpac.

    In January this year Westpac decided to no longer issue existing cardholders with replacement cards, and would migrate those customers to their own westpac branded cards, That is all the story says.

    The article written says that Westpac is binning the brand altogether, it says nothing about fees or contract which ceased in 2007, they are irrelevant to the story that was being written

    Westpac has owned Virgin Money in Australia for close to a year now and are ceasing it as a concern and migrating customers to their own brand, there is nothing misleading in the branded cards, that is all that is really been said.

    Here is where I drew the story from

    The first link is a story in the Herald Sun on the sale of the VM operation for a pittance to Westpac a year ago, the second link is the story of the brand being ceased by wetpac and the third link is to a story in The Sheet which like we did also picked up on the story that VM was to be binned

    If you could advise which part of our combined stories is incorrect and if you feel the need to have westpac clarify your stance we would be most grateful.

    (1) http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23478034-664,00.html

    (2) http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24934640-664,00.html

    (3) http://www.thesheet.com/nl05_news_selected.php?act=2&stream=1&selkey=7713&hlc=2&hlw=

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