Branches of the Cumberland Building Society around Cumbria are celebrating landmark birthdays this year.
Its Windermere branch marks 45 years in 2023, having opened in 1978, while the Kendal branch opened five years later.
Whitehaven, Egremont, and Wigton are all marking their 40th anniversaries, as is the Denton Holme branch in Carlisle. Kingstown to the north of the city is 25 this year.
Its oldest branch, however is in Lancashire – Preston celebrates its 50th birthday.
The birthdays have been celebrated with balloons in the branches along with cake for customers who have joined in with the party mood to mark the occasion.
The Windermere celebrations were joined by Pauline Wilcock who was the first customer to be served by the team in when it opened 45 years ago in 1978.
In Kendal, solicitor Stephen Pooley told staff about his visit on the branch’s opening day when he dropped in on its 40th birthday party.
Claire Crossan joined the Cumberland as a cashier straight from school in 1987, but for the past two years she’s been the society’s customer experience manager, ensuring a consistent approach across all 32 branches.
She said: “When I joined, we didn’t actually have computers, we just hand-wrote everything. We hand-wrote a customer passbook, and a transaction sheet, and those sheets were posted every night and then processed by head office the next day.
“The way we do things has developed significantly over the years.
“Some customers still love coming in to update their passbooks. But now some people want to bank online or by telephone. So it isn’t just about the face-to-face experience – it’s a whole customer experience, and that is one of the biggest changes that I’ve seen throughout my career.”
Although there have been big changes in the banking sector in the 45 years since the Windermere branch opened, cluster manager Lyndsey Taylor believes being the ‘only bank in town’ shows the Cumberland’s focus on its customers.
“It’s testament to our values that we are still there looking after our customers,” she said. “They value that they have a choice to bank in a way they want and that human contact is very important.
“We have colleagues who stay in a branch for quite some time and get to know our customers and that means they feel they can trust us.”
As well as being there for its customers, the team also gets involved in supporting their community through volunteering days and by making donations to local good causes.
“We’ve done everything from giving a colleague time to help South Lakes Sight Advice with a fundraising collection and getting a raffle prize, to making a donation to Bowness & Windermere Community Care Trust for one of their projects,” said Lyndsey.
Debbie Shearer joined the Cumberland in 1989 as an office junior in Carlisle’s English Street branch, just a year after it opened, before working in branches across the network.
She’s now head of first line risk, but her belief in the branch network’s value to customers and communities remains.
“We build up good relationships and bonds with our customers,” she said. “When I was at English Street, I got to know the lady who comes in every Tuesday morning at 10 o’clock and she wants money out of her account.
“Then I went off on my tour of other branches and came back 20 years later, and the same lady is still coming in every Tuesday morning at 10 o’clock.
“For a lot of our customers, they just like coming to see us; it’s part of their week.”
