Cabinet Secretary Jane Hutt visits Monmouthshire Building Society’s Abergavenny Community Connect outlet

Jane Hutt MS, the Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, called into Monmouthshire Building Society’s recently opened Community Connect outlet, to hear more about what the building society is doing to help financial inclusion. 

The counter, which is based in Monmouthshire Council’s Community Hub on the town’s high street, opened in November last year. It is open on a Tuesday and a Friday.

Monmouthshire Building Society’s return to Abergavenny has been welcomed widely by the community, which saw the closure of both Barclays and Halifax in the past 12months alone. The Building Society used to offer a service to Abergavenny, with a counter housed in another high street shop, but in 2023 that shop stopped trading and so the Building Society had to close it at short notice. 

Ever since then Monmouthshire Building Society had been looking for another base in the town and the Council Hub was the perfect location. It shares the facility with the local library, some council services and is next door to Abergavenny’s famous market hall.

The Welsh Government is committed to creating a fairer financial system in Wales that works for everyone, with more accessible finance services to meet people’s needs. 

The Cabinet Secretary said: “I was delighted to visit the Monmouthshire Building Society community branch at the hub in Abergavenny Market. It’s a great example of how banks and building societies are finding new ways to support people right in the heart of their communities. It’s clear that face-to-face banking still matters to so many of us, and I’m pleased to see MBS showing such a strong commitment to staying on the high street.”      

Monmouthshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Rural Affairs, Housing and Tourism, Cllr Sara Burch, said: "It was lovely to welcome the Cabinet Secretary to the Abergavenny Hub, as it allowed us to demonstrate how community hubs can help restore essential services to our towns. As a council, we are dedicated to building and maintaining partnerships that benefit our community, like the one with Monmouthshire Building Society."

Will Carroll, CEO of Monmouthshire Building Society, said: “Community inclusion and serving customers close to their homes is an integral part of the service we provide at Monmouthshire Building Society. So, when it came to naming this new outlet, Community Connect seemed to be the perfect fit as that’s exactly what it does. This is an initiative we’d like to expand on and believe that it is part of the solution to keeping financial services on the high street. 

“Having an outlet here at the Community Hub is the perfect solution for us as it offers shared facilities, with customers already visiting the town to do their weekly shop and offers something different. Being here, we are truly embedded in the community and what is going on around the town and that is really important to us.”

Will added: “We are bucking the trend and instead of closing branches we are opening them, and we even house our headquarters and back-office functions in our branches in both Newport and Cardiff as they are so integral to our ethos as a building society.

“We hope to create more community outlets like these in the future and will continue to work with and support Mrs Hutt and the Welsh Government in their endeavours to make financial services a more inclusive service for all.”