Even better is for a community to _own_ a bank.
In the UK there are Building Societies. Originally the concept went only like this: If a thousand workers in a town pool their savings to form a mutual Building Society it can use that money to loan someone (one of their number or somebody else) money to build a house. The new house owner's payments on the loan provide good interest on the savings and a profit the society can use to expand, as savings and loan payments roll in they can loan more money for another house and so on, eventually everybody gets a house and rich bankers get nothing because the society's savers and borrowers are also its owners. The first ones were Limited Building Societies, they ceased to exist after a period of time having served their purpose - providing loans within a geographically constrained community, but the Permanent Building Societies grew, and eventually came to dominate mortgage lending as an industry in the UK.
Towards the end of last century unfortunately there were what the press called "Carpetbaggers". The carpetbaggers realised that a Permanent Building Society has a considerable cash reserve because it needs to be able to survive a "bank run" and its main assets are other people's homes which aren't liquid enough to cash out if a run happens. Their plan was, join the society and then vote as members to convert the society into a limited company, an ordinary bank - effectively cashing out. This worked on a number of famous Permanent Building Societies, including the one that had loaned money for the house I was growing up in at the time. I voted against, my parents (whose mortgage it was) voted in favour, and their side won, the society no longer exists. Some societies instituted "anti-carpetbagger" rules to try to prevent it, challenged demutualisation in the courts, or just plain voted against - those are still successful today, while the ones that turned into ordinary banks were mostly ruined in the recession (e.g. Northern Rock)