Virgin Money Accredited Under UK’s General Export Facility Program

Financial service firm Virgin Money has joined the English government’s General Export Facility (GEF), opening up access to financial support to the company’s business clients at a time when the U.K. is dealing with crushing cost-of-living pressures.

“GEF was launched in March 2021 and is designed to provide access to flexible finance for SME exporters,” U.K. Export Finance said in a news release Friday (Nov. 4). “It has been a game-changing product unlocking almost 250 million pounds of working capital loans.”

Virgin Money joins six other lenders in the program: HSBC, Santander, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and Newable. Its first project will see it support the Oxfordshire-based company Westminster Group, allowing the business to land new contracts to supply X-ray security machines to two airports in Southern Africa.

This news comes days after reports that England’s four largest banks — Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Santander — had a surge in income thanks to interest rate hikes by the country’s central bank. As PYMNTS reported, this has led some politicians in the U.K. to call for these lenders to pay a windfall tax to help reduce the country’s budget gap.

Last week also saw the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority order 32 lenders to change how they treat customers, with seven of these companies agreeing to pay 12 million pounds ($13.5 million) in compensation to nearly 60,000 customers.

“Given the current cost of living challenges, it’s vital that the sector continues to learn lessons to make sure they support struggling customers,” Sheldon Mills, the FCA’s executive director of consumers and competition, said in a news release. “We will take action to restrict or stop firms from lending to people if they fail to meet our requirements that consumers in financial difficulties should be treated fairly.”

As PYMNTS has reported, those difficulties include food inflation reaching a record annual rate of 11.6% for October, leaving people paying more for fresh foods, along with staples such as tea, milk and sugar.

Last month, the U.K.’s GfK Consumer Confidence Index — which measures people’s overall financial situation and general sentiments about the economy — has been on a near-continuous decline. In September, the index fell to an all-time low of -49, marking the fifth successive month in which the metric hit a new low.

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