General News
18 July, 2022
Bringing benefits to our towns
COMMUNITY has been at the heart of banking in Inglewood and districts communities for 15 years. The vision and enthusiasm that motivated communities in 2007 to jump at the rare opporrtunity to buy a bank, keeps delivering dividends for local...
COMMUNITY has been at the heart of banking in Inglewood and districts communities for 15 years.
The vision and enthusiasm that motivated communities in 2007 to jump at the rare opporrtunity to buy a bank, keeps delivering dividends for local towns.
Community Bank Inglewood & Districts next week celebrates its milestone of providing local people with local banking services.
Board chair Linda Younghusband said: “The vision and commitment to keeping banking services local has never wavered in our 15 years and this very much drives the strength and resilience of our community bank.
“A strong community bank helps us strengthen our communities, too, and support our people and organisations in their aspirations,” she said.
There has been a bank on the corner of Brooke and Verdon Streets, Inglewood since 1861 when the Bank of New South Wales constructed a grand double-storey Victorian brick building that stood until demolished in 1969, replaced by a simpler design that is today’s home of the Inglewood community bank.
When the Bank of New South Wales, by then Westpac, left town in 1995, IOOF took over the premises to provide residents with a banking facility until it was acquired by the Bendigo Bank in 1999.
Founding chairman and current board member Max Higgs recalls: “In early 2006, in what is now Cousin Jack’s café, then manager of the bank, Jill Burdett and myself met with representatives of Bendigo Bank to discuss the possibility of purchasing the branch and operating it as a community bank.
“The motivation behind this idea was twofold. Firstly, to secure a long-term banking facility for the community.
“Secondly, banks make money and the Bendigo Bank community banking model allows half of the profits generated in a community to be returned to that community. The offer to buy was too good to refuse.”
Jill Burdett would become the local community bank’s first manager. “Our steering committee traversed the district gaining support from potential new customers,” she recalled. “Local people were quick to embrace the community bank concept and many have remained loyal customers,” Jill said.
Current manager Michael Prowse, who last week notched up 20 years in the banking industry says the community banking model allowed the Inglewood bank to “re-
invest profits back into local communities and strengthen those communities”. In addition to the Inglewood branch, there’s also a thriving Bendigo Bank agency in Wedderburn.
It was a brave and bold move by Bendigo Bank to establish its community model more than 20 years ago. Today, there are 324 Community Bank branches throughout Australia ... Inglewood is one.
A SPECIAL BIRTHDAY PARTY WILL BE HELD AT THE BANK TOMORROW 20 JULY