Finance Marketing Business

Virgin credit card is a brand of card launched by Sir Richard Bransons Virgin Group in partnership with the Westpac; a group involved in banking business with over two centuries of banking experience. The partnership commenced after the Virgin Group initiated its first launch outside the United Kingdom when it introduced its credit card to Australia. The cards were operated by the Westpac as a result of this partnership with Mastercard logo attached and are available in Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

In Australia, the credit card was launched in May 29, 2003 and for one to qualify for it, one had to be a resident of Australia, aged over 18 years and earning more than $15000 Australia dollars per year. The credit card has fascinating features, like no annual fee ever,55 interest free days on purchases if the users paid their cards in full each month and best of all, the card holders were to benefit by using the card which had 430,000 branches in Australia alone and more than 32 million location worldwide.

However, the virgin credit card was withdrawn from sale in Australia as of 3 April 2008 after informing its users of the intended swap of the Virgin credit card to new Westpac ignite Mastercard which was rolled into the market on 9 February 2009.

Someone may ask why the change? The reason of drastic change of Virgin credit card to the new ignite MasterCard was cited as due to the acquisition of virgin money credit card portfolio by the Westpac in the year 2008 after recording a loss of $19.445 million, a loss for the third consecutive year. Moreover, the virgin credit card was being marketed as the cheapest alternative credit card sector therefore there was an urgent need to fix the problem.

However, there is good news for Card holders, they will continue using their credit cards until they receive their new ignite Mastercard and their accounts will remain exactly the same, while the security of their Credit cards will be enhanced since the new card is issued with the latest embedded security chip which has stronger protection against counterfeiting and skimming when used at a CHIP terminal. The virgin Group has been working the Westpac over the past six years since the successful launch and its operational expired on 1st June 2009.

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