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David Fishwick

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David Fishwick
BornMarch 1971 (age 53)
Nelson, Lancashire, England
Occupations
  • Businessperson
  • Media personality

David Fishwick (born March 1971) is an English businessman. Born in Nelson in Lancashire, he left school at sixteen with no qualifications, before opening David Fishwick Minibus Sales in Colne and becoming the biggest minibus supplier in Britain. After finding that big banks were no longer willing to lend his customers money following the 2007–2008 financial crisis, he opened Burnley Savings and Loans, which used the advertising slogan "Bank on Dave". His efforts were documented in the Channel 4 series Bank of Dave and the semi-autobiographical 2023 film Bank of Dave. He would later present several series for Channel 4 including How to Get Rich Quick.

Life and career[edit]

Early life and businesses[edit]

Fishwick was born in March 1971,[1] and grew up in a poor family on John Street in Nelson, Lancashire.[2] He attended Edge End High School,[3] which he left at sixteen with no qualifications,[4] and took a Youth Training Scheme course at a construction site, where he pebbledashed buildings.[5] He and his co-workers would visit the local fish and chip shop after a day's work; he told Holly Mead of The Times in June 2024 that his dinners at the time comprised a chip butty, that he wanted but could not afford steak pudding, chips, peas and gravy, and that he was still affected by an incident aged sixteen in which he discovered after ordering that he was three pence short, prompting the cashier to bin a handful of his chips.[5]

"I went around all the garages and I found one that had some old part exchanges and I said, “Could I take that old part exchange away? I’ll clean it up. I’ll scrub it off. I’ll sell it. I’ll advertise it and I’ll bring you back an agreed amount of money, and the difference is mine. I eventually found a garage that agreed, and I agreed to give them £70 for this [Vauxhall] Cavalier when I sold it. I took it away, scrubbed it up, sold it for £97 so I made £27 profit. I repeated that process to the point where I could negotiate a better deal and could pay upfront, and that’s how it started."

Fishwick speaking to The Daily Telegraph in February 2023[2]

After finding that he wanted to enter the UK automotive industry, he went from garage to garage asking if he could have a part-exchanged car to restore and sell in exchange for some of the profits.[2] His first part-exchange was a Vauxhall Cavalier that had flat tires and lots of scratches, which he advertised in the local paper for £100 and sold for £97.[5] Around this time, he would also spend his mornings selling cheap clothes for a profit and his evenings DJing; he met his future wife while working at a nightclub after she told him his music was rubbish and he told her she could pick a record so long as she wrote her phone number on its sleeve.[5]

Fishwick then diversified into refurbishing vans and then minibuses,[5] switching exclusively to vans, minibuses, and minicoaches in 1994, and opened David Fishwick Minibus Sales,[6] which had sites in Colne, Birmingham, and Stockport[7] and later became the biggest minibus supplier in Britain.[8] Between 2004[9] and 2017, the firm sponsored Burnley F.C., during which time the club's Turf Moor stadium's Cricket Field Stand was named the David Fishwick Stand.[10] In 2005, having bought a helicopter for his own use and finding that others were asking if they could borrow it, Fishwick opened a helicopter business, which provided charter flights.[11]

Bank of Dave and media career[edit]

In 2008, after the 2007–2008 financial crisis, Fishwick found that big banks were no longer willing to lend his customers money, posing an existential threat to his business; after lending his own money on his own terms, and after no borrowers defaulted on their payments during the first six months, he looked into setting up a bank himself, where he discovered that although obtaining a consumer credit license was simple enough, obtaining a deposit-taking license required a minimum of £10,000,000 to be kept in reserve[8] under Financial Conduct Authority regulations.[12] He later opened Burnley Savings and Loans in September 2011 in that town centre's Keirby Walk using a peer-to-peer crowdfunding model, with "Bank on Dave" emblazoned on the front of the shop as an advertising slogan.[4]

Fishwick's efforts were immortalised in the Channel 4 series Bank of Dave,[8] which aired two episodes in July 2012.[13] A subsequent episode, Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats, was broadcast in February 2013,[14] and won an award for the best feature and factual entertainment programme at the 2013 British Academy Scotland Awards.[15] In mid-2020, Fishwick was approached by Piers Ashworth, who was interested in making a film about his story.[16] This was released in January 2023 by Netflix as the semi-autobiographical film Bank of Dave,[4] and was the ninth most searched film that year.[17] A sequel, announced that April,[18] was intended for 2025,[19] and was focused on the American payday loan industry.[20]

In 2013, he appeared on The Secret Millions, in which he and a group of teenagers[21] who had suffered challenging upbringings such as homelessness or addiction attempted to open a employment agency.[22] The following year, after finding that young people were coming to him after falling into a spiral of debt after getting involved with payday loan firms and that said firms were lending to people who were underage, mentally ill, and even drunk, he fronted Dave: Loan Ranger, in which he took on their debts himself,[23] and then the year after that, he co-presented the consumer series Shoppers Guide to Saving Money with Kate Quilton.[24] In July 2017, it was announced that he would film a six-part series for Channel 4 called How to Get Rich Quick.[25] Upon broadcast in July 2018, Peter Crawley of The Irish Times wrote that the show "encourages people of modest means to pursue equally modest dreams in the very modest hopes, several weeks of hard work later, of doubling their modest investments".[26] In 2020, he appeared on a week of episodes of Your Money And Your Life, a daytime consumer show presented by Matt Allwright and Kym Marsh,[27] and in 2024, Fishwick was suggested as a potential contestant on that year's series of Strictly Come Dancing

References[edit]

  1. ^ Cannon, Nicholas (2023-01-15). "Bank Of Dave — release date, cast, plot, first looks, trailer and everything we know". whattowatch.com. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  2. ^ a b c McGrath, Nick (2023-02-12). "'I like that the big banks hate me – they do nothing to help the public'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  3. ^ "Final bell for Nelson school". Lancashire Telegraph. 2010-04-01. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  4. ^ a b c Ross, Deborah (2023-01-18). "Formulaic and untrue: Bank of Dave reviewed". The Spectator. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  5. ^ a b c d e Mead, Holly (2024-06-21). "Dave Fishwick: My helicopter was once the Duke of Westminster's". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  6. ^ "Overseas 'spares' supply takes off". Lancashire Telegraph. 2006-09-18. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  7. ^ "Count US in says David!". Lancashire Telegraph. 2005-12-30. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  8. ^ a b c Collinson, Patrick (2012-07-06). "Bank on Dave: one man's crusade to help small businesses raise finance". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  9. ^ "Clarets Fishing for new sponsor". Lancashire Telegraph. 2004-07-13. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  10. ^ "Turf Moor stand sponsorship comes to an end". Burnley Express. 4 August 2017. Archived from the original on 7 August 2021. Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  11. ^ "Sky's the limit for David". Lancashire Telegraph. 2005-10-26. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  12. ^ Fishwick, Dave (2012-07-12). "Why I opened the 'Bank' of Dave". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  13. ^ "Are you ready for second episode of 'Bank of Dave'?". Burnley Express. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
  14. ^ "Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats". Time Out. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
  15. ^ "'Bank of Dave' star bags BAFTA award". Burnley Express. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
  16. ^ "From Bond to Bank of Dave - Hollywood star to play Burnley businessman in new Netflix film". Lancashire Telegraph. 2022-02-10. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  17. ^ "Google: Barbie and Shakira among most searched in 2023". BBC News. 2023-12-11. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  18. ^ "Netflix confirms unexpected Bank of Dave sequel". Digital Spy. 2023-04-27. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  19. ^ "Filming for Bank of Dave sequel on Netflix confirmed for 2024 directed by Chris Foggin". Lancashire Evening Post. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
  20. ^ "Bank of Dave founder says Netflix film sequel is 'dead exciting'". BBC News. 2024-05-21. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  21. ^ "Braintree: Secret Millions teen describes how he turned his life around". Braintree and Witham Times. 2013-04-13. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  22. ^ "Burnley 'Bank of Dave' star to appear on 'The Secret Millions'". Burnley Express. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  23. ^ "Dave Fishwick takes on pay-day loan firms". Burnley Express. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  24. ^ Stubbs, David; Virtue, Graeme; Catterall, Ali; Gibbings-Jones, Mark; Davies, Hannah J.; Raeside, Julia; Mueller, Andrew; Howlett, Paul (2015-11-09). "Monday's best TV: London Spy, The Shoppers' Guide To Saving Money, Fargo". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  25. ^ "Dave Fishwick to film new six-part show How To Get Rich Quick". Lancashire Telegraph. 2017-07-05. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  26. ^ "How to Get Rich Quick: 'Can you hear it?'... 'Ka-ching!'". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  27. ^ "Bank of Dave gives viewers money tips on new BBC One daytime TV show". Lancashire Telegraph. 2020-06-16. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
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