Britain's First Black Church Bank

On September 19, 2024, the Pentecostal Credit Union (PCU) became the Pentecostal Community Bank at an elegant function held at the Royal Society, Central London, England.  In the presence of 120 leading Church personalities from right across the Black Church denominational spectrum, stories were told of its humble beginnings and the struggles the late Rev. Carmel Jones and his wife, Iveline Jones, the founders of the PCU faced.

Rev. Jones, an ordained minister with the Church of God in Christ, with early links to the historic Ransom Pentecostal Church of God, which would later become the Ransom Pentecostal A.M.E. Zion Church, was part of what is called the ‘Windrush generation’, the migration of 500,000 persons from the Caribbean to the United Kingdom after World War II.  He, along with many of his ministerial colleagues in the 1950s through to the 1970s, experienced racial discrimination as they sought to access loans for housing and church buildings from the British High Street financial institutions.

Rev. Jones, a tenacious man of vision and integrity, refused to accept rejection as a final answer.   With a vision for the spiritual and economic growth of the Black community in the United Kingdom, he founded the Pentecostal Credit Union (PCU).  In 1980, in a small front room in Balham, South London, Rev. Jones, with a dozen other church leaders, started the credit union with an initial £1 deposit (US$15 equivalent today). 

The Pentecostal Credit Union grew from strength to strength and became one of the largest credit unions in the UK with an asset base of £13.5 million, £10 million deposit, and a loan portfolio of £8.4 million and has 2,700 credit union members.  Over the past 45 years, the Pentecostal Credit Union financed the purchase of 23 church buildings, hundreds of homes, and scores of entrepreneurial ventures.  

This graduation to community bank status will now allow the Black Christian community greater access to ethical banking, financial literacy, mutual saving services, mortgages, and loans. It comes at a critical time for the Black Christian Community, which experienced a 40% growth in its numbers even as wider Church attendance has declined from 11.8% to 5.0% of the population between 1980 and 2022.  It is estimated that there are nearly 4000 black-majority churches in Britain, with a million adherents around the country. The black Pentecostal churches have about 300,000 members.

As the United Kingdom’s urban religious landscape changes, the Pentecostal Community Bank will need to understand the growth and priorities of the Black Christian community and be part of the strategic future of the Black community’s access to the higher echelons of the British financial sector.

At its launch, one speaker stated, ‘To whom much is given, much is required,’ and this is certainly true of the Pentecostal Community Bank.  It is now the leading Black Financial institution in the UK’s Financial Sector.  A recent report, Reboot: Race to Equality on the Financial Services Sector in the United Kingdom, showed that “Privilege within the financial services sector is firmly in the hands of white leaders and employees”…. It further revealed that “The current lack of diversity has a clear impact on ethnic minority ambition, creating a de-motivated workforce that is far from ideal for any financial services organization looking for growth in an otherwise competitive industry.”

If we look at the venture capital market, for instance, the Diversity Beyond Gender report has shown that between 2009 and 2019, only 38 black entrepreneurs received venture capital funding. Alongside their teams, they received just 0.24% of the total sum invested. 0.02% of total venture capital invested went to black women entrepreneurs.

The 2,485,724, Black persons in the United Kingdom which is 3.7% of the total British population have repeatedly asked for much more from the Black Church. Commentators have highlighted the critical role of the Black Church in Black economic empowerment. The Pentecostal Community Bank is now in the right place for such a time as to rise to the expectations of its communities.