Member Article

Bank’s birthday bash has star appeal

Tynedale Community Bank celebrated its first birthday at the weekend with a sold-out showing of the best-loved movie that inspired it.

One of the most popular Christmas films of all time, It’s a Wonderful Life, was screened at the Forum Cinema in Hexham at an event sponsored by Prudhoe tissue maker SCA Hygiene.

Written and directed by Hollywood legend Frank Capra, the 1946 production features actor James Stewart as the big-hearted businessman running the family-owned Bailey Brothers bank.

Hexham MP Guy Opperman, who organised the birthday celebration said: “It is partly on the model of the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan Association that the Tynedale Community Bank was created.

“There is a definite need, with too many high street banks disappearing from rural Northumberland – and into that gap comes a community bank based here in Hexham which can provide proper, local community lending.”

Inspired by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s call for the church to support community-based banking, the bank offers a viable alternative to pay-day lenders for Tynedale’s 55,000 residents.

Lauren Langton co-founder of the bank with Guy Opperman said:

“We are open for business and available for everything from crisis to bridging loans. And we are also getting more and more people who see a deposit with us as ethical saving that helps those in their own community who are in need of help.”

After a successful first year, the bank now has plans to expand into Prudhoe and has enlisted the support of SCA Hygiene – makers of leading tissue brand Velvet and the town’s biggest employer.

A spokesman for the company said: “As a major supporter of community activities in Prudhoe, we are delighted that this new bank is thriving and expanding into our part of the Tyne Valley.

“Many of our employees may know someone in need of the services it will offer, or alternatively be in a position to invest ethically in this kind of peer-to-peer lending.

“And it is particularly appropriate that the bank’s first birthday is being celebrated not only with a movie that received five Oscar nominations but actually stars Prudhoe-born actor Henry Travers as the angel Clarence Odbody.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by publicrelations consultancy.com .