June update on successful investment raising

We are very pleased to be able to announce that we have now reached our first investment round target, having successfully raised £280,000 from 18 social investors and foundations from right across our region.

In other news our sister bank in London GLM, who are about a year ahead of us, is progressing well with their £20m investment raising and their bank licensing process, using a very similar business plan to ours.

Having built a fantastic amount of stakeholder support across the region we are now shifting our focus to: market research, marketing and brand; communications and social media; further regional movement building and stakeholder mapping; focusing on the next phases of investment raising; finalising our business plan and starting our bank license application process; search for potential C Suite staff for the bank; recruitment of an interim Bank Board and an Advisory Council.  

We are also delighted that Tony Greenham, Deputy Chair of GLM, ex banker and a world renowned leader in the future of banking, is going to be supporting our effort part-time from June. Tony is also going to shift from his role at RSA to leading the founding of a new sister bank to ours in the SW.  

We are also planning recruitment of part time project management and admin support as all we talking to a number of providers of pro bono and paid consulting support of various kinds.