LONDON--Seventeen credit unions have been awarded a total of £1m in grants from Lloyds Banking Group through its Credit Union Development Fund. Nearly 100 credit unons from across the U.K. had applied for funding during 2014, before the final group was selected.
The fund, run in partnership with the Credit Union Foundation, will provide £4m to credit unions selected by an independent grants committee.
Two types of grants are available: large awards between £50,000 and £100,000 and seed funding awards between £10,000 and £20,000. According to Lloyds, 12 credit unions will receive large awards, intended to provide a contribution to a credit union’s reserves and help remove barriers to growth and innovation, with another five receiving seed funding awards to help make the changes they need to apply for a large award in a subsequent year or to pay for the costs of merger.
“Lloyds Banking Group’s ground breaking investment of £4m over four years via the Credit Union Foundation is a game changer for the credit union sector and will make a huge difference to allow credit unions to grow their services sustainably,” said Liz Barclay, independent trustee of the Credit Union Foundation and chair of the Fund Grants Committee.
“As well as our £4m fund over four years, as part of our Helping Britain Prosper Plan we have invested £235,000 in the pilot stage of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Church Credit Champions Network,” said Graham Lindsay, director of responsible business at Lloyds Banking Group, added. “We’re also starting to roll out signposting customers, where appropriate, to their local credit union and creating local relationships between credit unions and branches, including access to skilled volunteers.”