Since the 1970s, I have been a customer of Yorkshire Bank, which, three years ago, merged with Virgin Money. A few weeks ago, I started receiving letters from Virgin Money telling me about an “exciting new credit card app”. As I don’t have a smartphone, and use my laptop for online banking, I didn’t think it applied to me. However, when I recently tried to transfer money from my current account to my credit card account, the latter had vanished. I was told by the bank that my credit card could only be managed by the “exciting new credit card app”. At no point during our correspondence was it mentioned this would be the case for a laptop user.
CB, Ilkley, West Yorkshire
Virgin Money’s decision boils down to money. Or, in its own words, to “focusing our development resource” on “customer preference”. Maintaining a secure website and an app is expensive and, if banks decide that they can shave their budgets and dress it up as an improvement, they are unlikely to be squeamish about the minority of customers who are disconnected.
