The effective wind down of the Virgin Money brand in Australia is under way with credit card customers of Virgin receiving letters from the firm over the replacement of their cards by Westpac, which is the card issuer.
The Herald Sun reported Westpac would replace the cards with the "Ignite MasterCard" that will, for the time being, maintain one core brand promise of the Virgin card and exclude an annual fee.
The newspaper also reported that the chief executive of Virgin Money Australia, David Wakeley, left the firm at the end of last week.
The credit crunch has played havoc with the aspirations of Virgin Money in Australia. Westpac and Virgin agreed last year to dissolve their joint venture in credit cards; the home loan business is in suspension and the superannuation product with Macquarie Bank is the only remaining offer.
Despite having run up accumulated losses of $31 million according to its 2008 accounts, Virgin Money plans to continue to invest.
According to its website, "We've been hard at work building our portfolio of financial services over the past few years and will continue to do so."