The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Virgin dotcoms banking arm

Australian analysts leak 'secret information'

Free whitepaper – Power distribution systems for the Dell PowerEdge M1000e Modular Server Enclosure

Richard Branson's Virgin has attempted to dampened speculation that it is set to open an Internet bank to compete with Egg, Smile and e-bank in Britain. The company said that a plan to create a Net bank was just one of a number of options currently being considered by the financial branch of the group, Virgin Direct. Virginmoney.com would offer a range of financial services and is rumoured to launch as early as June. But a spokesman for Virgin Direct said: "We do have a number of things in the pipeline -- this is just one of them. "We're just formulating ideas at the moment -- I have nothing more to say," he said. Despite Virgin Direct's efforts to pour a bucket of cold water over the matter, the Telegraph's source for the story is just about as rock solid as they come. Apparently, this secret information was made public at an analysts' meeting in Australia by the insurance company AMP. AMP owns 50 per cent of Virgin Direct. A spokesman for Virgin Direct denied there was any conflict with its Australian partner over the premature release of the company's plans. Yesterday, Britain's biggest bank, Lloyds TSB, announced its intention to create an online bank. ®

Free whitepaper – SPECjbb2005 performance and power consumption on Dell, HP, and IBM blade servers

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes