BOQ acquires Virgin Money

Former CEO of Colonial First State, Brian Bissaker, will head up the newly acquired Virgin Money Australia, Bank of Queensland (BOQ) has announced. 

BOQ purchased Virgin Money from the Virgin Group for a total price of $40 million, which will include $30 million of the bank’s shares, according to BOQ CEO and managing director, Stuart Grimshaw. 

Virgin Money is a financial services firm which operates in Australia, UK and South Africa, and provides insurance, superannuation, home loan and credit card products and services. 

Grimshaw said BOQ found Virgin Money’s online presence particularly attractive. 

“Consumer preferences are shifting with technology so we require the know-how in online customer acquisition to reduce the risks of BOQ building this capability organically,” Grimshaw said. 

“They’ve already attracted over 150,000 customers even without a complete product suite and the customer acquisition is growing at a rate of 20 per cent per annum,” he added.  

The Virgin Money brand has attracted a customer-base that BOQ would not otherwise gain access to, particularly affluent professionals and young families. 

“The transaction gives BOQ the opportunity to manufacture banking products to be marketed under the VMA brand, in addition to its own products, Grimshaw said. “We also gain access to a ready-made white label superannuation product offering that we (BOQ) would otherwise have to build ourselves in order to tap into the fastest growing financial services segments in Australia.” 

Bissaker, who had been working with BOQ in a consulting role since August last year, will report directly to Grimshaw while running the newly acquired business on a standalone basis.