Edinburgh-based Virgin Money said on Wednesday it delivered a strong performance in its first full financial year since listing, with underlying profit before tax increasing by 53% to £160.3 million.
Virgin Money shares rose more than 7% after it said it enjoyed good growth in its mortgages, savings and credit card businesses.
The company said retail deposit balances increased 12% to £25.1 billion, credit card balances increased 44% to £1.6 billion, and mortgage balances increased 16% to £25.5 billion.
Virgin Money said its gross mortgage lending was £7.5 billion, representing a market share of 3.4%.
“I am delighted to report a 53% increase in underlying profit for 2015 which ended the year at £160.3 million,” said Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Chief Executive at Virgin Money.
“We have performed strongly against our objectives, including delivering market-beating growth in our core mortgages, savings and credit card businesses, maintaining the quality of our balance sheet and delivering a customer satisfaction rating among the highest scoring retail banks in the UK.
“Growth in our mortgage book outpaced the market as we continued to support demand for housing in the UK.
“Our savings franchise continued to flourish and deposit balances are now higher than at any point in our history.
“The success of our new credit card business, following the successful migration of credit card accounts to our own platform, means we now expect to grow card balances to at least £3 billion by the end of 2017, a year earlier than planned.
“We will continue to put our customers at the heart of everything we do and look to the future with confidence.”
Virgin Money is proposing to pay a dividend for the year of 4.5p per ordinary share.