“I’m not interested in bankers in the slightest," says the man who started his own bank.
“I’m not interested in bankers in the slightest," says the man who started his own bank.
People who rob banks go to jail, but bankers who rob people get bailouts, Dave Fishwick reckons.
He’s a capitalist who hates the bonus and bailout culture in his native England’s banking sector. And his exploits setting up the eponymous Bank of Dave have inspired a movie.
Fishwick, from Burnleyin Lancashire, says the recent bank failures and bailouts from California to Switzerland should exasperate people.
“In 2009 it happened and they promised it would never happen again.”
His struggles setting up a community bank after the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago have been chronicled in new independent film Bank of Dave.
The self-made man’s lack of interest in glitz and convention extended to his view on where Bank of Dave’s premiere should be held.
“They’d never had a premiere outside Leicester Square.”
He pushed for the big event to screen in Burnley, a town of about 95,000 north of Manchester and far from the West End.
“There were hundreds of people in the movie who couldn’t make it to London.”
Fishwick says many big banks have deeply flawed priorities and have become aloof from communities.
He says some big players have offered to buy his bank, seeing it as a threat, but the bank’s not for sale and he has no desire to be part of the establishment.
“I’m not interested in bankers in the slightest.”
He says systemic and ethical issues afflicting the sector in the UK are often present in other countries too.
He’s puzzled at the affection big UK banks seem to have for shorting - betting on a stock losing value - although hedge funds and many other traders do it too.
“You’re almost betting that they’ll go down. It just feels so unethical and morally wrong.”
Dave Fishwick is visiting New Zealand and hopes to hear from local entrepreneurs and other Kiwis interested in community banking and responsible lending.
His disdain for city bankers shouldn’t be construed as a hatred for free enterprise or making money.
‘I’m a really big believer in capitalism and if you work really hard, you deserve more than somebody who does nothing.”
But he objects to failed or failing banks getting taxpayer bailouts, and worries about the contagion bank failures caused during the GFC and now could cause with the Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse collapses.
Some investors may roll their eyes at the suggestion shorting is unethical but Fishwick’s vision of banking is more centred on a community-based approach.
He may never have heard the Maori concept kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) but that’s effectively how his Burnley operation works.
Fishwick speaks of a by-locals-for-locals approach when it comes to customer service and lending money.
“The big banks are missing people. A computer 300, 400 miles away can’t make a decision.”
He says a man recently approached Bank of Dave asking for credit.
“He left his job and he wanted to buy a window cleaning round. He would put his own money into it, so he had skin in the game.”
The business model involved more window cleaning spots opening up later, and the borrower planned to create work for a school leaver.
Fishwick said he enjoyed providing small but practical loans in the same ways Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus did.
Yunus is credited for lifting people out of poverty in his native Bangladesh and elsewhere through the provision of microcredit and microfinance. Fishwick cites meeting Yunus as a career highlight.
Nobel Peace Prize 2006 laureate Muhammad Yunus is one of Fishwick's inspirations. Photo / Getty Images
“We need to stay away from casino banking. They send it to America, bet on the stock market and make billions, so there’s no interest in lending to small businesses,” Fishwick says.
“We do small loans. I want to keep people away from payday loans.”
He worries that Israel and New Zealand are the only OECD countries without deposit insurance schemes. Such a scheme is planned in New Zealand, but is taking longer than previously hoped and is now only expected to start late next year.
Fishwick said he hoped to meet Kiwi entrepreneurs who might also set up a community bank. He said there was ample scope for new local banks - in specific communities, perhaps a Māori bank set up by and for tangata whenua.
“I’ve not taken a single penny in 12 years. I’m in the vehicle business, I’m in the investment business, I’ve got lots of other businesses that make me money. I started at absolutely nothing and built some very big businesses from scratch.”
He’s happy to share the secrets to community banking models and voices a dislike of elitism. He says successful people who are secure financially and secure in themselves should share tips to success, rather than “pull the ladder up” behind them.
Fishwick said Bank of Dave had lent £31 million ($62.86m). The bank, officially Burnley Savings and Loans, opened its doors in 2011.
Bank of Dave premieres in New Zealand cinemas on Thursday, June 1. It features music from Def Leppard, a band Fishwick loves dearly.
Tempo Productions Ltd and Future Artists Entertainment made the film.
Radio Times said the movie “quickly hooked in viewers and soared to the top of the streamer’s most-watched movies in the UK in its week of release”.
Netflix purchased the film for the UK, but in other countries Bank of Dave is a big screen film first.
