Let’s get Scotland’s banking right

Common Weal believes both can be fixed with a mutually-owned People’s Bank. How this would be done is explained in the report Better Banking which proposes using an existing ‘bank in a box’ model. This is a preprepared model for a banking network which would initially be set up by government but would then be passed into the ownership of its customers. It has a full business plan and it would be able to open branches (or mini-branches via a ‘banking pod’ model) in any community where enough people joined the bank. It is particularly designed not to make profit from customers and to emphasise long-term, trusting relationships. These are particularly important to small businesses.