Nationwide Building Society has reached an agreement to buy Virgin Money in a £2.9bn deal.

Nationwide said it would not make any material changes to Virgin Money's 7,300 employees "in the near term", and said that it would keep using the Virgin Money brand initially but it would be phased out over six years once the proposed takeover is completed.

If the deal goes ahead it would be the biggest UK bank takeover since the 2008 financial crisis.

Virgin Money was then bought by the Clydesdale and Yorkshire bank group CYBG in 2018, but the group was rebranded under the Virgin name.

Virgin Money is now the UK's sixth largest retail bank with around 6.6 million customers, while Nationwide is UK's biggest building society with more than 17 million customers.

Chairman of Nationwide Building Society, Kevin Parry, said: "A combination with Virgin Money would accelerate Nationwide's strategy and create a stronger, and more diverse, modern mutual.

"The combination would increase Nationwide's scale and financial strength, put us in a stronger position to continue to provide Fairer Share Payments to eligible Nationwide members, and offer rates for mortgages and savings that are, on average, better than the market average."

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