An Evening Branch (Mondays and Fridays: 18:00 to 20:00) was opened on July 5th 1930, utilising a temporary wooden building located at the corner of Hobmoor Road and Church Road. The Branch List in the Bank’s 1931 Annual Report gave the address of this Evening Branch as 102 Church Road.
Growth of business at the temporary branch led to the Bank opening its 48th permanent office on Friday, May 12th 1933, on the same site. By this date, the branch had attracted 1,100 accounts, with credit balances totalling £27,670. The official opening ceremony was performed by the Bank’s Chairman, Alderman R R Gelling. Presiding at a tea held for invited guests at Church Road Council School, prior to the opening ceremony, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham (Councillor H E Goodby) said that in the Municipal Bank, Birmingham possessed an institution which was the envy of other cities and towns. It might be asked, he said, reflecting the current economic situation, how his “wise spending” campaign could be reconciled with the “wise saving” campaign of the Municipal Bank. They did not urge the citizens to spend rashly, any more than they urged them to save rashly. (The Lord Mayor continued this theme at the next branch opening, eight days later: Brandwood.) The Yardley evening branch, added the Lord Mayor, had had a steady growth, so that the new daily branch was able to begin with a substantial base of depositors.
At the opening ceremony itself, the Lord Mayor remarked, before presenting the key of the door to Alderman Gelling, that he was delighted to see so many young people present to witness the opening of the new branch. Addressing the adults in the audience, he said: “If any of you have a little hoard of money and you require certain things, I appeal to you to spend as sensible people. You will need no words of mine to advise you to save wisely at all times. This bank is for the small depositor – the working people – it is not intended for the investor.”
Before unlocking the door, Alderman Gelling said: “This property is yours. It belongs to the ratepayers of the City of Birmingham, and all of you have a share in it. You can come in here with a penny and start an account if you want. We will be very glad to receive any amount however small”. The Chairman was presented with a silver cigarette box as a memento of the occasion.
The large parish of Yardley, in Worcestershire, was absorbed into Birmingham in 1911 - the population of this rural area looking to the rapidly developing city (four miles west) as a better source of water supply, sewerage, health care, and transport facilities. Although the Birmingham to Coventry highway ran through the parish, the commercial centre of Yardley developed north of the road at an area known as the Yew Tree. It was at this location (the junction of Hob Moor Road; Church Road; Stoney Lane; and Yew Tree Avenue) that the Bank opened a branch.