David Fishwick

David Fishwick
David Fishwick's appearance on James English's Anything Goes podcast in April 2023
Born	March 1971 (age 53) Nelson, Lancashire, England
Occupations	Businessperson Media personality

David Fishwick (born March 1971) is an English businessman. Born in Nelson, Lancashire, he left school at sixteen with no qualifications, before opening David Fishwick Minibus Sales 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 2012-2013 Channel 4 series Bank of Dave. After finding that customers were coming to him having tangled with payday loan firms, he investigated the industry for the 2014 Channel 4 series Dave: Loan Ranger. Both of these Channel 4 series won British Academy Scotland Awards. His efforts at setting up a bank were loosely adapted for the 2023 film Bank of Dave.

Fishwick was born in March 1971.^[1] He grew up in a poor family on John Street in Nelson, Lancashire, and attended Edge End High School, both of which were later demolished.^[a] He left school at sixteen with no qualifications,^[4] and took a Youth Training Scheme course at a construction site for £27.50 per week plus overtime,^[5] where he pebbledashed buildings.^[2] After a day's work, he and his co-workers would visit the local fish and chip shop^[2] in Hallam Road in Nelson;^[5] he told Holly Mead of The Times in June 2024 that his dinners at the time comprised a chip butty, and that he wanted but could not afford steak pudding, chips, peas and gravy.^[2] He decided he wanted to no longer be poor after an incident at that shop aged sixteen in which he discovered after ordering that he was three pence short, prompting the cashier to bin a handful of his already salted and vinegared chips.^[5]

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.^[6] 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.^[2] He repeated this process until he could afford to buy upfront,^[6] and would stuff his wallet with paper to make himself appear richer to prospective sellers.^[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.^[2]

Fishwick then diversified into refurbishing vans after being given a red Astramax van to refurbish, and then into minibuses for the same reason.^[5] He switched exclusively to vans, minibuses, and minicoaches in 1994, and opened David Fishwick Minibus Sales,^[7] which had sites in Colne, Birmingham, and Stockport.^[8] He later became the biggest minibus supplier in Britain.^[9] Between 2004^[10] 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.^[11] 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.^[12]

In 2008, after the 2007–2008 financial crisis, Fishwick found that big banks had stopped lending his customers money, posing an existential threat to his business.^[9] 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^[9] under Financial Conduct Authority regulations.^[13] 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,^[9] which aired two episodes in July 2012.^[14] The series was released at the same time as a memoir, Bank of Dave: How I Took on the Banks.^[15] Reviewing the second episode, Alex Hardy of The Times described the show as "some of the most joyous TV seen this year" and opined that Fishwick "could have been one of the best comedy characters of 2012".^[16] A subsequent episode, Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats, was broadcast in February 2013,^[17] and won an award for the best feature and factual entertainment programme at the 2013 British Academy Scotland Awards.^[18]

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 investigated the industry.^[19] Originally intended for autumn 2013, the show was delayed until January 2014 for legal reasons.^[20] Upon broadcast, the show won Best Current Affairs Programme at the 2014 British Academy Scotland Awards.^[21]

In mid-2020, Fishwick was approached by Piers Ashworth, who was interested in making a film about his bank's story.^[22] He granted permission for this on the condition that it was shot in Burnley, where many of the events took place.^[23] The film 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.^[24] A sequel, announced that April,^[25] is set for January 2025,^[26] and was loosely based on his experiences with the payday loan industry.^[27] In June 2024, Jason Manford stated that he was in talks to star in a musical version of Bank of Dave.^[28]

In 2013, he appeared on The Secret Millions, in which he and a group of teenagers^[29] who had suffered challenging upbringings such as homelessness or addiction attempted to open a employment agency.^[30] That May, alongside Loan Ranger, Channel 4 announced Fishwick Out of Water, a six-part series intended for 2014 in which Fishwick was dropped blindfolded into a random UK town with a pound and challenged to make a fortune.^[31] In 2015, he presented "Can Property Pay Your Wages", in which he advised members of the public on how to make money through property,^[32] and then the consumer series Shoppers Guide to Saving Money, which he co-presented with Kate Quilton.^[33]

In 2017, he appeared in "Dave's Guide to Spending", a documentary in which he explored supply chain costs and launched a brand of bottled water.^[34] That July, it was announced that he would film a six-part series for Channel 4 called How to Get Rich Quick.^[35] 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".^[36] 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.^[37] He declined invitations to appear on 2023's series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!^[38] and the 2024 series of Strictly Come Dancing, both times due to work commitments.^[39]