A Community Bank in Wales

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:32 pm on 3 December 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:32, 3 December 2019

Well, Llywydd, I thank Mark Isherwood for that question. He is quite right to say that the business of setting up a new bank has significant regulatory hurdles to overcome and that it can be a protracted business. But that is why we are working with the Community Savings Bank Association. And in that way, the landscape has changed since 2010, because the Community Savings Bank Association, coming out of work carried out by the Royal Society of Arts, has financed itself and led preparation of constitutional documents, IT systems, branch designs, payment system links, product specifications, and, critically, banking licence application documents. So, there is now a great deal more work that has been done by a group of experts that gives us the foundation for what Banc Cambria can do here in Wales. 

The banking licence application document, particularly, breaks the process of obtaining a licence into a number of manageable phases. And that's the way that we intend to work through the process in Wales, taking it a step at a time. That's why the initial market assessment and feasibility study is so important, because it will test those basic questions of viability and sustainability, and then we will move to the next stage, working with 11 other initiatives that are at various stages of progress across the United Kingdom, each one of them under the umbrella of the Community Savings Bank Association, giving us the confidence here in Wales that we have the advice we need to make a success of our ambition to establish a community bank.