NW Mutual chooses Preston for retail and business customer banking

Preston has been chosen as one of the locations for NW Mutual branches, offering a mutual bank service for retail and business customers in the North West.

NW Mutual Ltd, the co-operative society behind pioneering plans for a mutual bank serving retail and business customers in the North West of England has revealed Preston as one of its locations for approximately 60 proposed branches spanning the region.

Dave Burke, a highly experienced financial services executive with an extensive background in launching, building and managing regulated businesses, has been appointed as the chief executive of NW Mutual Ltd. Dave Burke said:

"Our market research, supported by a large body of public research and information, shows a proven need and demand for a bank that's trustworthy, democratic, ethical, deeply rooted in the North West and that enough people and businesses in the region would use to make it a great success.

"The North West is more than capable and large enough to create and sustain a prosperous bank. When we achieve our goals, our mutual bank will recycle more than £900m of money from the North West back into the region.

"This is serious money and it's already here but it's not. We want to stop it leaking out and heading south, north or east."

Having already registered NW Mutual Ltd with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), regulator of financial services firms and markets in the UK, David is preparing a banking licence application to submit to the Bank of England in late 2025.

If the licence is granted by the Bank of England, the first bricks and mortar branch is planned to open in the third quarter of 2026, with a full roll-out proposed for the first quarter of 2027. So far, about £1m has been invested to build the systems and financial model of NW Mutual, prepare the banking license application and analyse its market.

Following a decision by Preston City Council Members at full council in January, Preston City Council has committed £250,000 to NW Mutual Ltd becoming the first North West authority to pledge money to supporting the bank's plans to date.

Councillor Matthew Brown, Leader of Preston City Council said:

"For too long much of our mainstream banking system has failed to serve our communities and local businesses. Across the North West region more than half of our branches have disappeared in the last 10 years and small businesses especially struggle to secure the finance needed to expand.

At Preston City Council we want to do something about that by directly investing in the NW Mutual as a viable cooperative and ethical alternative. We are delighted to hear plans for the first branch to open in Preston and market research shows the public would welcome this new model of banking owned by and run in the interest of local people."

The proposed 'bricks, clicks and flicks' business model of NW Mutual will deliver hi-tech and staffed branches, complemented by mobile and online banking, providing retail and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers with a full range of financial products and services.

Visit NW Mutual to learn more.