A fund provided to generate ideas for the Big Society Bank is being launched by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta).

The Big Society Bank Finance Fund will offer funding to design and trial effective proposals for new financial services that could be implemented in the Big Society Bank itself. 

Stian Westlake, executive director of policy and research commented: “We want to attract a broad set of proposals from within the existing social financial market and beyond. There is a huge amount of expertise developing in the UK on how to best support this burgeoning sector but this knowledge must now be consolidated into simple products and services that will have maximum impact”.

Nesta, which was called upon by the government to pilot Big Society Bank activities, will select an initial 15 proposals by 19 November. Successful ideas, say Nesta, will be "simple, quick and replicable, and should have the potential to attract further capital investment from individuals and institutions, either on commercial or philanthropic terms."

Potentially five will be taken up by the fund and developed for possible use by the bank when it launches in April 2011.

The deadline for submissions is 12pm on 5 November 2010. To download application details visit: www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/Big_Society_Fund_Call.pdf.