The banking industry in the UK is very different to the US. Virtually all current accounts (checking accounts) are free to operate in credit, yet come with full ebanking capabilities, a chequebook, debit card and so on. I'm surprised that the retail banking environment hasn't crossed to America; it really does seem to be more customer focussed and yet still highly profitable.

I don't know how true this is (I suspect at least part of that will be money you need to have on hand rather than spend as such) but I do know that Virgin have just bought an existing bank because it was quicker and easier than starting from scratch. It would apparently have taken 6 months to jump through all the regulatory hoops.

No, it took 6 months to buy an existing bank. There's at least one group who put in a request in 2008 for a license and is still jumping through hoops.

Without knowing who this other group is the fact that they started the process in 2008 and still hasn't finished does not mean that Virgin would be unable to complete it in 6 months.

I got my figures from http://www.fool.co.uk/news/investing/2009/12/30/virgin-break...