“If I can do it, anyone can do it”

Thursday 14 December 2023

Talking to Dave Fishwick is like speaking to your mate down the pub. The man behind the ‘Bank of Dave’ said he is finally being taken seriously by politicians thanks to his work in the finance world, but it’s clear that he has kept his feet firmly on the ground with a near-constant chuckle as he shared his life story before speaking in Guernsey recently.

Mr Fishwick was guest speaker at the Guernsey Chamber of Commerce Gala Dinner at the end of November.

From humble beginnings to (in his own words) now having everything he could ever want, it’s clear that his life is all about helping other people. 

Starting out in his native Burnley where he would lend money out of his own pocket to friends and associates with business plans of their own, his impact escalated when he successfully opened Britain’s first new high street bank in 150 years.

Since then, there have been television series about him and a film – with a sequel in the works – and he’s been invited to speak at events in Dubai, Athens, and South Africa to name just a few.

“I just turn up and I meet lots of people and I tell people the story,” he said.

“The story is, at school I was absolutely useless. I left at 16 years old with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever, not a single one. I went straight onto a building site as a builder's labourer.

“I come from a very, very poor family, and we just couldn’t afford for me not to go to work. My dad had two jobs - he was a tackler which is somebody that fixes looms, and he was a farm labourer, he always had two jobs, he always worked seven days a week, and my mum was a weaver but unfortunately, none of those jobs pay well so everybody worked super hard, including me.

"I went straight from school onto a building site, going up ladders with a bucket of cement in each hand, pebble dashing the side of a building as a builder's labourer’ and I’ve gone from builder’s labourer to building the first new High Street Bank in over 120 years in  Britain, and Hollywood made a film about me....so it's a completely normal story, and then Hollywood are about to turn up again for the second time! 

“Normally when you get a biopic made about you, you're dead, so there's a wonderful story there, you know. 

“I built six businesses from scratch here and in America and you know, if I can do it, anybody can, and that's what I try and get across to everybody.

"I want everybody to go away from the night feeling that they've enjoyed it, that they've had fun, they've been entertained, but also they have the message that ‘if Dave can do it then I can too’.”

With his Guernsey night sold out well in advance there is clearly an appetite for Dave’s brand of entrepreneurship which has community spirit at its very heart.

"We started with one and now I'm the largest supplier of mini-buses in the country,” he explained. 

“So it's not where you used to be, it's where you finish that counts.”

He’s helped lots of people on their own journeys to success along his way, with Burnley Savings and Loans lending more than £33million to thousands of people and businesses across the UK since he launched it a decade ago.

"What we do is we help people get the best rate of interest on the high street. We then lend that money out to people and businesses who can't borrow from the high street bank through no fault of their own and any profit after the rates are paid we give to charity.”

That has always been Dave’s ethos – whatever Burnley Savings and Loans makes, he gives back.

That is also an area where he’s seen changes recently.

"...we seem to be helping a lot of food banks at the moment. That seems to be the thing that people need. People need to eat, you know, and they're really struggling to buy food at the moment.

“I'm getting people wanting loans for baby milk and to pay electric bills. I'm getting people applying for them sort of loans at the moment. It's a very worrying time when you've got bankers on one side getting their bonuses uncapped so they can make many, many tens of millions of pounds and then on the other side, coming back to Burnley I've got a list of people who want to borrow money just to feed themselves or to pay for electric.”

Dave’s well documented concerns over the country’s deeply entrenched banking systems and the bonuses some highfliers can earn are what drove him to launch Burnley Savings and Loans in the first place. He said that situation hasn’t really changed but with the current cost of living crisis he is seeing more people at the other end of the economic scale.

“I've just funded a food bank with milk for the entire year. It was really struggling to get milk so I bought a year's supply of milk.

“I've got a school that I use as a good example too, because the head mistress called me up and she said 'I'd love to buy a bus, but with no money what we really need is to help feed the kids’. 

“The kids are going to school starving, their parents can't afford three meals anymore.

"So she sent me a list of the machinery they needed, a big industrial toasting machines and all sorts of other things. I bought them all and then I bought them a year's supply of food and I said to them, three months before that runs out ring me and I'll give you another year's supply of food.

“But isn't it bonkers where people are fighting over needing £10 million, £20 million bonuses and then you've got a headmistress of a school ringing up a local business saying ‘is there any chance you can help feed the children?’.”

Pictured: Dave Fishwick at a previous speaking event.

Dave’s success, which enables him to help those less fortunate while challenging those enjoying the big bonuses he criticises, has taken him around the world, including his recent pitstop in Guernsey.

“I have a very, very wide range of businesses here and in America so I can answer pretty much any question that most people have got, maybe not in as much detail as somebody else, a professor or whatever, but I can certainly give an opinion

“I speak for some of the biggest companies in the world. I've recently spoken for Coca Cola International, and I flew out to South Africa to speak for BMW International. 

“I can be in front of 5,000 or 10,000 people and speak, or I can be in front of 100 people and speak. It really doesn't make any difference to me because it's all about if you get a good audience who are really interested and want to have some fun and want to learn something, you can really have some fun with them people.

"I literally travel the world speaking about banking.

"(Recently) I was in parliament speaking. I've been asked by the (UK) government to come along and discuss what it would take to get community banks run by the community to benefit the community across Britain.

"To be asked by the government to come in shows they take me very seriously now and that's a huge part of moving forward.

"I'm known for the Bank of Dave, but I've actually made 10 different documentaries, and then I went to America and I made the American version of it where we looked at the American banking system and then I made a series called The Lone Ranger where I took on the payday loan industry and I won an award for that and I got Wonga shut down. 

“Then I did one called Secret Millions where I raised a couple of million for disadvantaged kids and we opened pop up job centres across the country. Then I went on to make business shows and consumer shows and loads of different things. Then I got into live television a couple of years ago, and that started to really take off and that's opened a lot of doors in politics and things. 

“Basically, I'll do anything that's interesting, but I turn down 99% of the stuff I get asked to do because it's not really for me, you know.”

Why does Dave do all this?

That was another easy one for him to answer.  

"I started with nothing, so I know what it's like to have nothing. 

“I now have everything I could possibly need and more, but what I find in a lot of wealthy people who have been successful entrepreneurs, they climb up a ladder and they hide in a tree, and they’re frightened to tell anybody anything or to tell anybody any secrets but if you've got all that you need, why do you need to pull the ladder up?

"Why not just give a little bit of advice? I do.”

Dave Fishwick was in Guernsey to speak at the Chamber Gala Dinner at the end of November.

This article first appeared in Connect which can be read online HERE.

The next edition of Connect will be available online and at select locations across the island from 1 February.