Successful Lancashire businessman Dave Fishwick has taken a major step towards opening a bank by announcing a funding round of £2.5M on leading equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.
His Burnley Savings and Loans Limited company (“BSAL”), also known as “Bank on Dave”, is currently in the application process to become an authorised UK Bank.
Dave said the business aims to provide affordable loans to hard-working individuals and reliable small and medium-sized business who do not always have access to mainstream finance.
He said he wants to put the trust, ethics and best-practice back into banking, treating customers as individuals and valued clients, creating a bank that is community oriented and genuinely helps underserved businesses, individuals, families and communities.
Having already lent nearly £20 million to over 3,000 qualifying borrowers across the UK, BSAL is now seeking to grow its reach by becoming an authorised UK bank, which will be called “Bank of Dave”.
To help achieve this, BSAL is launching an initial fundraising round on Seedrs to support the procurement of IT systems and building of the Bank’s infrastructure needed in preparation of it becoming an authorised bank.
The bank is forecast to achieve an annual operating profit of £4.5 million before tax in Year 5 of the plan.
BSAL was established in 2011 in the wake of the financial crash and the devastation it left across the North of England.
As a man passionate about his hometown of Burnley, Dave wanted to set up his own business in Lancashire to help inject much-needed financial support into local community and businesses, and to prove that financial service providers can be socially responsible.
BSAL seeks to respond to the significant market need from small and medium-sized businesses and individuals who may have difficulty or are unable to access affordable credit from mainstream high street finance providers.
Dave said that one of the driving aims of the Company is to lend responsibly, therefore providing the customer with an opportunity to obtain credit, which in turn will help them to improve their credit rating in the future.
Over the past seven years, the company has seen that customers seeking a modest loan may in the future turn into a customer that is eligible to borrow a much larger amount therefore creating a compelling ‘feeder’ acquisition strategy for the company.”
Burnley Savings and Loans Founder, Dave Fishwick said: “The core vision for Bank of Dave is to create an ethical, successful and sustainable bank which is distinctive from established UK banks which we believe are falling short on supporting underserved individuals and small business.
“We believe in the need for a fresh approach to Banking and to provide products and services that meet real customer needs.” We have had a brilliant few years acting as a savings and loans provider, but the opportunity to become a fully authorised UK bank will expand our horizons even further, enabling us to help more people across the UK.
“We are delighted to be launching our first ever funding round on Seedrs, giving our hundreds of thousands of amazing supporters a chance to share in a new UK-owned high street bank.”
CEO Jim Bradley commented: “We are going through the authorisation process to become an authorised UK bank and are advancing towards this goal. We continue to witness a real market demand for financial providers that offer essential banking services to customers that traditionally find it difficult or are unable to access affordable credit. We are confident that once fully authorised that the Bank of Dave will be the bank that delivers this capability.”
