Every dark cloud has a silver lining and all that.
Virgin Money has halted plans to merge with Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank due to coronavirus.
Some 52 branches were due to close – including the landmark Yorkshire Bank on Fargate in Sheffield city centre – under plans to rebrand the business to Virgin Money by October. Some 500 full time equivalent jobs were due to be axed.
Yorkshire Bank on Fargate stands opposite a Virgin Money Lounge. The bank was due to close in August under plans to ‘consolidate’ branches within half-a-mile of another by closing one.
Under the plans, Yorkshire Bank branches in Chapeltown and Wombwell, Barnsley, were due to close.
Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank paid £1.7billion for Virgin Money in 2018. The deal completed in October last year and plans were announced to rename all branches nationally Virgin Money, which was deemed the stronger brand.
Yorkshire Bank, which traces its roots back to 1859, was set to disappear.
The Yorkshire Penny Bank (later Yorkshire Bank) has stood on the site since the corner stones were laid in 1888 by builders Armitage and Hodgson and completed in the summer of 1889. It was designed by Leeds-based architects Henry Perkin and George Bertram Bulmer.
The Albany Hotel once occupied floors above the bank.
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