“I’m pretty confident that over the next year or two, this issue will become a central topic for the Bank of England, regulators and people both here and abroad,” he said.
effective cooperation
He said banks would not cooperate to avert the threat. However, by using the same third-party cybersecurity provider, they are effectively working together.
“The platform creators will learn from each bank the best solutions that will deliver the best results, even if the circumstances are different,” he said. “Even though we won’t end up exposing our proprietary protection methods, we will have a platform that consistently produces best-in-class outcomes based on bank aggregates.”
In its first year, Virgin Money will focus around £40 million on using AI to fight AI. In line with regulatory requirements. ”
Mr Duffy said Virgin’s broader strategy to become a digital-first bank meant it needed to act early as it sought to compete with the UK’s five much larger retail banks, which dominate the market. He said there was.
The bank’s full-year profit, announced late Thursday (AEDT), fell 42%, due to a high and conservative provision of £309 for potential but not yet clear bad debts, particularly on credit cards. The total amount was 345 million pounds. Book.
Despite the downturn in the mortgage market, underlying operating profit increased by 8% and net interest margin improved. Underlying operating costs increased 6%, but the cost-to-income ratio declined slightly to just under 52%.
To soften the sour tone of the headline profit figures, the bank increased its proposed share buyback to £150m and set its full-year dividend at 5.3p per share. Shares fell 3% in early London trading after the results were announced.
Virgin Money said its strategic shift to “digital dominance” is still underway. The percentage of active retail customers whose engagement with the bank was digital-only increased from 56% last year to 61% this year.
The bank has reduced its physical branch network by almost a third to 91 branches. The total site area is now 440,000 square feet (40,900 square meters), down from his original 900,000 square feet and closer to his 300,000 square foot goal. Some of the asset savings will help offset investments in cybersecurity, Duffy said.
The bank’s current shape and strategy is rooted in the £1.7bn merger between Virgin Money and Clydesdale in mid-2019. & Yorkshire Banking Group. CYBG was a division of National Australia Bank until it was demerged in 2016 and remained listed on the ASX.
The combined group has spent four years undergoing a major overhaul, with one year remaining. Although it is the country’s biggest challenger bank, it is still nowhere near the scale of giant banks such as Lloyds, Barclays and NatWest.
Duffy said the failure of Silicon Valley Bank “reminded everyone of the benefits of scale” and that his bank was open to remerging if the right opportunity presented itself.
“If something comes to fruition, it has to meet three criteria that we have in mind: It has to complement the profile of our portfolio. “and it should be less complex,” he said. “We don’t want to be tied down to a huge event for years and leave the field.”