Business champion Burnley Savings and Loans Limited (“BSAL”), also known as “Bank on Dave!”, has taken another step towards becoming the first UK owned high-street bank in 120 years and today are announcing a £2.5 million funding round on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.
BSAL was established in 2011 by local millionaire businessman Dave Fishwick 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 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 SMEs and individuals who may have difficulty or are unable to access credit from mainstream high street financial companies. One of the driving aims of the Company is to lend responsibly, therefore providing the customer with greater opportunity to control their debt, which in turn will help support an improved credit rating in the future.
Over the past 7 years, the Company has seen that customers seeking a modest loan may in the future turn into a customer that wishes to borrow a much larger amount to support their business’s growth, therefore creating a compelling ‘feeder’ acquisition strategy for the Company.
Dave wants to put the trust, ethics and best-practice back into banking, treating customers as individuals and valued clients. Creating a bank that is an institution from the community, for the community.
Having already lent nearly £20 million to over 3,000 qualifying borrowers across the UK, the Company is now seeking to grow its reach by becoming an authorised UK bank, which will be called “Bank of Dave”. To do achieve this, BSAL is launching their fundraising round on Seedrs to support the procurement of the IT systems needed in preparation for its bank license application.
Burnley Savings and Loans Founder, Dave Fishwick said: “The core vision for Bank of Dave is to be the ethical choice provider of loans and savings products to honest hard-working families, helping every generation to grow their business and to save for the future.
We have had 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 around 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 the first new UK-owned high street bank in over a century.”
CEO James Bradley commented: “We are going through the authorisation process to become a bank and are advancing towards our goal of becoming an authorised UK bank. We continue to witness a real market demand for financial providers that offer essential banking services to customers that traditionally found it difficult or have been 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.”
For more information, visit: www.seedrs.com/bankondave
