So much for the challenge from ‘challenger’ banks

Virgin Money has set out to offer ‘a genuine alternative to the large incumbent banks’. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

It was a nice idea while it lasted. So-called challenger banks, it was fondly imagined, would emerge after the 2008-09 financial crash and show the UK’s big four banks how the industry should be run. Their weapons would be new technology, superior service and brand names unsullied by bonuses and bailouts.

More than a decade later, market shares in the industry haven’t shifted meaningfully, and here comes the latest example of a challenger bank finding the independent life to be challenging. Virgin Money – a combo with the former Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks via a 2018 deal – is provisionally minded to agree to a £2.9bn takeover by the Nationwide Building Society.