OREANDA-NEWS. Fujitsu has extended its partnership with Virgin Money to provide a mainframe environment which underpins a broad range of its services. Under the terms of the five-year contract, Fujitsu will continue to license its Virtual Machine Environment (VME) to Virgin Money. The mainframe will continue to power Virgin Money’s processing platforms and support new product releases, improving and enhancing services delivered through all of its channels, to over 4 million Virgin Money customers. The deal ensures continuity of service, enabling its staff to carry on providing an excellent and reliable service to its customers. Fujitsu will also provide support and maintenance services to Virgin Money within the terms of the partnership.

Fujitsu has provided the operating environment for a period of 20-years, formerly to Northern Rock and to Virgin Money since they acquired the business on 1 January 2012. Virgin Money agreed to extend the relationship with Fujitsu following a strategic review of its IT estate to ensure that it would create a suitable environment to support future growth.

“Fujitsu is a proven partner, which has done an excellent job in providing a first-class, reliable operating environment to Northern Rock in the past and now Virgin Money, over the course of 20 years” said Jonathan Kennedy, CIO, Virgin Money. “Fujitsu has invested in and modernised the VME operating system and moved with the times to exploit modern platforms. Fujitsu also provides the strategic consultancy and technical capability required in a trusted IT partner. All of these factors played a part in our decision to make a contract extension with Fujitsu the right choice for us. We look forward to a long and successful working relationship.”

“We are very excited about the continuation of our relationship with Virgin Money,” said Duncan Tait, CEO, Fujitsu UK & Ireland. “At a time when consumer confidence in banks is low, it’s crucial that businesses have strong, reliable and consistent performing services for their customers and the technology which powers those services is critical. Fujitsu is very happy to be part of Virgin’s Money journey and looks forward to being part of its success.”