FEATURE
Specialist – Rob Lankey was appointed chief commercial officer at GB Bank in October 2022 .
GB Bank is proud to have been named Best New Savings Provider by both Money Comms and Money Net this year .
In June and July combined , we provided £ 10m of funding for customer community projects and in August we anticipate providing over £ 7m of further funding towards community developments , which will set a new monthly record .
Our progress has also not gone unnoticed by industry experts – we are delighted to have recently been shortlisted for Best Bridging Newcomer at the Bridging and Commercial Awards . However , we have set our sights high . There ’ s so much more to do and we ’ re excited to see the next phase of community developments come to fruition .
Savings that really pay The other key focus of our first full year at GB Bank has been growing our savings accounts , offering our customers competitive savings rates with an easy , no-nonsense onboarding process .
We set out to create accounts that not only work hard for people ’ s wallets but also for their communities and that ’ s exactly what we have achieved . So , while our customers receive a highly competitive rate of return on their savings , they allow us to fund even more residential and commercial developments .
We launched our first tranche of savings accounts in January this year and the demand was such that we hit our target number of accounts opened in just 24 hours !
This set the tone for the rest of the year and customer deposits in our savings accounts now total more than £ 340m .
Along the way , our savings products have also picked up industry plaudits – GB Bank is proud to have been named Best New Savings Provider by both Money Comms and Money Net this year .
People who take us forward All these achievements would not have been possible without the fantastic work of our GB Bank colleagues .
It ’ s always been our ambition to create a remarkable place to work and we ’ ve made great progress in building a culture to be proud of . This is evident by the results of our recent inclusion survey , in which 84 per cent of our colleagues said they are proud to part of the GB Bank team .
And as we have grown our business , particularly on the lending side , we ’ ve also welcomed a number of new faces through our doors .
We were delighted in October 2022 to bring on board experienced banking industry figure Rob Lankey as our chief
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Rob has more than 30 years ’ experience working in a wide range of organisations in the specialist lending and banking industry , having launched , built and grown a number of short- and longterm lending businesses .
Rob was not our only new recruit . During the course of the year , we welcomed a series of new starters in roles across the business including relationship managers , risk managers , underwriters and assistant relationship managers .
Facing the future – together It ’ s been an incredibly busy first 12 months as a fully licensed bank , but we are only just getting started .
As I write this , we already have £ 51m of lending approved and over £ 20m of new loans out of the door , so we can ’ t wait to see how this funding will transform communities .
We have a dedicated team with impressive growth plans , we have huge ambitions and we genuinely can ’ t wait to achieve them .
GB Bank offers flexible lending solutions for residential and commercial developments between £ 26,000 and £ 3m .
They welcome conversations around future opportunities , so visit gbbank . co . uk to find out more .
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