Scottish fintech OneBanx’s crowdfund closes short of the target
OneBanx, the shared banking business, has today closed its £1.25m fundraising on Crowdcube, having raised £1.28m, comfortably above its target.
Having rolled out its shared branch concept with three pilots in Central Scotland, the OneBanx team is now embarking on the next phase of its plans to create a national network of kiosks, in a bid to ensure that no community in the UK is left left without access to cash or daily banking services such as deposits and bill payments.
It has already opened an Access to Cash Kiosk in partnership with TSB at a shopping center in Nottingham and will soon unveil two community kiosks with Newcastle Building Society. But to really make an impact, OneBanx wants to mobilize communities up and down the country to demand that the banks that have collectively closed more than 5,000 branches since 2015 now come together to fund a OneBanx kiosk in their area.
A report published earlier this year warned that half a million people across Scotland are at risk of losing access to cash due to the current rate of bank branch closures.
According to the Scottish Affairs Committee’s Access to Cash report, more than half (53%) of Scotland’s bank branches have closed since 2015 – the highest percentage loss of the UK’s four nations.
As part of the crowdfunding exercise, OneBanx has already raised more than £1m in pre-funding against its target of £1.25m with a pre-money valuation of £12.5m. The shares on offer represented 9.04% of the company at a price of £15.06.
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Duncan Cockburn, founder and chief executive of OneBanx said: “With over 5,000 bank branches closing in the UK since 2015, the need for what OneBanx can offer communities is greater than ever.
“We have had fantastic support from our existing shareholders, but as a business rooted in serving communities, we wanted to expand our shareholder base to include more communities and partners with a real stake in our business as we expand and grow.
“The warm reception we have received in recent weeks is both encouraging and exciting. Now that there are 10 high street banks committed to funding shared infrastructure and the thousands of kiosks or similar needed across the UK, there is a real opportunity here to make a difference to customers.”
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