“If you can’t drive to it, don’t lend to it”

Money is often spent locally. “If you can’t drive to it, don’t lend to it” and “if you can’t drive to it, don’t invest in it” are popular adages.
 
“We have a saying in the bank; If you can’t drive to it, don’t lend to it” was said in 1994 by Lawrence K. Fish, who worked for Citizens Financial Group from 1992 to 2009. One entrepreneur explained in 2001:
 
“If venture capitalists can’t drive to it, they don’t invest in it. Start-ups go where investors are. That’s why there is this concentration in London.”
 
   
HeraldScotland
Citizens Group set to compete
Thursday 15 September 1994
Boston, Wednesday—Citizens Financial Group, sometimes called ‘‘the fastest growing bank in America’‘, has reached critical mass and is positioned to compete when interstate banking barriers fall, chairman Lawrence Fish said.
(...)
Citizens’ desire to remain a community bank limits further growth, Mr Fish said. ‘‘We have a saying in the bank; If you can’t drive to it, don’t lend to it,’’ he said.
 
Google Books
Digital Futures:
Living in a Networked World
Edited by James Wilsdon
London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
2001
Pg. 140:
As one entrepreneur explained, “If venture capitalists can’t drive to it, they don’t invest in it. Start-ups go where investors are. That’s why there is this concentration in London.”
   
THe Scotsman
RBoS opens talks over $3 bn US deal
Published on the 07 July 2001 01:00
(...)
Goodwin is known to be very impressed with Citizens’ performance under American banker Larry Fish, who is widely recognised as an innovator leader in the American banking industry.
(...)
Its adjacent geographical position also appeals to Fish who once said his prime banking maxim was: “If you can’t drive to it, don’t lend to it.”
     
Forbes.com
Richard C. Morais
1/06/2003 @ 12:00AM
Brisk and brusque
(...)
Fish, a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, says that Citizens’ success is built on basic banking: taking in deposits and lending out money locally, with nothing fancy. “If we can’t drive to it,” he says, “we don’t lend to it.”
 
Element8
ENERGY ANGELS PROVIDE KEY SUPPORT FOR CLEANTECH INNOVATION IN NW AND BEYOND
BY BEN ROMANO, XCONOMY | 12/18/13
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee heaped praise on Seattle energy storage materials maker EnerG2 as he celebrated the University of Washington’s Clean Energy Institute last week.
(...)
The longest-tenured cleantech angel investing group in the country has continued to expand its geographic footprint, bucking the traditional angel investing mantra of “if you can’t drive to it, don’t invest in it.”
 
The Huffington Post
Jason Grill (Owner of JGrill Media, National Writer/Contributor, Entrepreneur, Attorney, Former two-term member of the Missouri House of Representatives)
Tech Startup Funding in Midwest? Cincinnati Says No Problem
Posted: 01/13/2015 9:15 pm EST Updated: 01/14/2015 1:59 pm EST
(...)
Silicon Valley Bank’s managing partner John Hoesley is taking notice of Cincinnati. “Ten years ago, the vast majority of coastal firms had no interest in investing outside of their backyard at all. There was the old adage that if I can’t drive to it, I’m not going to invest in it. Cincinnati is the market that’s probably been the most surprising to me. It has really come up fast,” says Hoesley.