This savings account from Oxbury Bank is all about planting trees

The growing ‘green’ fintech movement is gathering pace, what with Starling Bank introducing rPVC bank cards and Bunq planting tens of thousands of trees.

Now Oxbury Bank is getting involved with the launch of its Forest Saver savings account today, which boasts an FSCS-protected savings bond with its 0.7 per cent interest dedicated to funding tree-planting projects.

To be clear, being an agricultural bank for farmers, the returns from Oxbury’s savings account are entirely invested in an issue that closely impacts many in that community.

“Oxbury Forest Saver will have a uniquely positive impact—protecting customer savings and the planet, while also supporting British farming—and with interest rates at all-time lows it offers our customers a cost-effective way of making a meaningful difference as they save,” said Oxbury co-founder and chief customer officer Tim Coates.

For the woodland creation projects, Oxbury has partnered with Forest Carbon, a leader in the carbon-capture/mitigation space, and the first tree-planting will take place in the Scottish borders with more sites to follow.

“We have very much enjoyed working with the forward-thinking team at Oxbury over the past 2 years, and we think Forest Saver is a fantastic way for people to put their money to good works in a transparent and quality assured way—the impacts will be real, measured and monitored,” said Forest Carbon co-founder Stephen Prior.

Interestingly Oxbury team point out that in their research some 58 per cent of Brits believe that companies are only changing their environmental efforts for PR purposes, rather than serious attempts to be more sustainable.

Clearly Coates and co believe their efforts are more genuine, given their target customers are intrinsically linked to the environment.

Oxbury launched in January following its £15m fundraise led by Duke of Westminster group, marking the first new agricultural bank to open its doors in the UK for nearly 100 years.

It secured its banking licence last February and has tapped into ClearBank for its banking platform and Naqoda for its core banking platform.