Case Studies

For businesses struggling in depressed areas of Manchester and Cheshire, access to £2m in loans means a lot. This is the potential that our relationship with Business Finance Solutions has created.

Business Finance Solutions (BFS) is a community development finance institution (CDFI) which started life in 2002 as a lending institution completely reliant on government grants. CDFIs provide finance and business support to people and organisations that are unable to access it from mainstream providers. They specifically target enterprise whose purpose is to create wealth in disadvantaged communities or under-served markets.

By 2008 it had made 285 loans worth £2.9m, and had a further £2m ready to lend, made up of finance from NatWest, RBS and the North West Development Agency.

According to BFS, our involvement was crucial in assisting with the strategic direction for the CDFI. Importantly, they secured accreditation under the Government's Small Firms Loan Guarantee scheme, giving us the confidence to support a commercial loan.

We now support Business Finance Solutions through board involvement and are able to open other channels of finance and support to those businesses it helps.

ACEVO (the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations), connects, develops and represents the third sector's leaders. We have joined forces with ACEVO to share information between in a range of new master classes.

Sessions bringing bankers and third sector leaders together have focused on areas such as up-skilling and coping in the recession. These have proved to be a great success, with between 20 and 30 attendees at each session.

They provide attendees with a valuable insight into what we can provide, and bring a new perspective to our community bankers.

ACEVO director for the north, Jenny Berry, says: ''Knowing the right terms to use and the right information can open up doors, but it's not just one side learning - there are outcomes on both sides.

''These relationships also help us host events as the bank has premises we can use, which is very helpful, especially on a regional level. It means we can keep events affordable.

''The classes are not about pushing people together; our members have gone away with some very serious leads''

An international Fairtrade retailer that is part-owned by its Ghanaian coca suppliers won first place in a prestigious awards scheme designed to celebrate the best in social entrepreneurship.

Divine Chocolate won £10,000 as an overall winner of the 2007 Enterprising Solutions Awards, run by the Social Enterprise Coalition on behalf of NatWest Bank.

In 1997, Kuapa Kokoo, a Ghanaian cocoa farmers cooperative, voted to set up its own chocolate company. Divine Chocolate Ltd was founded in 1998 with the mission to improve the lives and opportunities of small scale cocoa farmers in West Africa by establishing a Fairtrade chocolate brand in the UK.

Divine not only pays Kuapa Kokoo a fair price for its cocoa, but also, because the co-operative is the major shareholder in the company, delivers the farmers a share in the distributable profits too.

In an innovative move to help the farmers own their stake in the business, the Department for International Development guaranteed a NatWest £400,000 bank loan to Divine Chocolate as part of its poverty alleviation programme in Ghana - the first time the financial instrument had been used.

The business is making a healthy profit and has now expanded into the US where the chocolate market is worth $13bn. Divine's success has led to thousands of Ghanaian farmers benefiting in many ways, including new wells which give local access to clean drinking water, improved health prospects, and freeing up women to bring in extra income and children to spend more time in school.