Virgin Money said it is committed to offering “competitive savings rates” amid ongoing criticism that the banks are not passing on recent interest rate rises.

The Glasgow and Newcastle based bank, which last week axed a third of its branches, acknowledged that high inflation is persisting and driving market expectations that “further rate rises are likely in 2023”.

In a third quarter statement, it said this has played through to the housing market, with the higher interest burden contributing to subdued activity.

Ahead of expectations that the Bank of England will raise rates further tomorrow, the bank said it remains “committed to offering competitive savings rates to new and existing customers and have increased our proactive communication to help them get better rates.

“For customers that we lend to, we are providing tailored support, including the ability to restructure facilities or make reduced payments, and we have fully implemented additional measures as part of the new Mortgage Charter.

“In addition to direct support for customers, we are working with the industry and third parties to provide assistance to those most in need.”

David Duffy, chief executive, said: “We have delivered another quarter of good progress against our strategy, with growth in both deposits and our target lending segments. Given our strong capital position, we anticipate a total of c.£175m of buybacks for FY23 with more to follow as we normalise our surplus capital position by the end of next year.

“Our overall credit quality remains stable and we are fully committed to doing the right thing by our customers, through competitive rates, innovative products and proactive communication, as well as supporting government initiatives to help people through the current challenging environment.”

The bank said it saw growth in net lending and deposits, robust margin and broadly stable credit quality in the third quarter.

Mortgages were broadly stable at £57.5bn, in a subdued market. Business lending was up 1.6% to £8.7bn,