The challenger bank has announced that its underlying pre-tax profit increased by 10% to £141.6m in the first half of 2018 (H1 2017: £128.6m).

Underlying total income for the bank grew by 5% to £343m, up from £327.2m in H1 2017.

Jayne-Anne Gadhia, CEO at Virgin Money, said: “I am delighted to report that our customer-focused strategy of growth, quality and returns continued to drive strong financial and operational performance during the first half of the year.

“We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet, as shown in our common equity tier 1 ratio of 16.3%.

“This benefited from recent changes to our capital models to ensure they fully reflected the excellent credit quality of our lending portfolios.

“Our partnership with Virgin Atlantic has got off to a flying start and the development of our digital banking platform is progressing well.”

The news follows the announcement in June that CYBG and Virgin Money have agreed the terms of a recommended takeover offer worth around £1.7bn.

The recommended all-share offer by CYBG will bring together the strengths of both challenger banks.

“The recommended offer made by CYBG for Virgin Money in June reflects confidence in our strategy, our track record of delivery and the complementary models of the two businesses and will accelerate the delivery of our strategic objectives,” added Jayne-Anne.

Virgin Money is a signatory of the Women in Finance Charter, and Jayne-Anne believed it was making strides to meet the charter’s requirements.

“I am delighted that we have continued to improve our gender pay gap, which reduced by a further 9% over the last year,” said Jayne-Anne. 

“We remain committed to achieving 50:50 gender balance throughout the company by the end of 2020.”