LONDON, March 7 Reuters Virgin Money, the British challenger bank founded by entrepreneur Richard Branson, could be swallowed up by mutuallyowned lender Nationwide, in a surprise 2.9 billion pound potential deal, the companies said on Thursday.

The proposed takeover, still subject to conditions, serves as a milestone for the UK banking industry, and would consign one of its bestknown and fastestgrowing brands to history after Nationwide said it planned to phase out the Virgin brand.

The following are key steps on Virgin Money39;s threedecade long journey.

Branson pushed Virgin, a mobile phonestoflights group, into financial services in 1995. The group offered credit cards, insurance, savings and pensions in the UK, and also sold products in Australia and South Africa.

In 2007, Virgin made a play for British bank Northern Rock  once a mutuallyowned building society like Nationwide after it suffered the first run on a major UK bank for more than 140 years amid a funding crisis. The talks failed and Northern Rock was nationalised.

Virgin tried again and in 2011 the British government agreed to sell Northern Rock for close to 1 billion pounds. In October 2012, Northern Rock plc was renamed Virgin Money plc.

Virgin made a lukewarm stock market debut in 2014 with a sale that netted 140 million pounds for its billionaire backers, which included Branson and financier Wilbur Ross.

In a bid to scale up and compete with bigger rivals, in 2018 Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking…