A report on credit unions by the Financial Inclusion Centre has found that 81% of members are very satisfied with their service, with 84% saying they would refer a friend.
The centre, an independent non-profit think tank, based its findings on nearly 12,500 completed surveys from 29 credit unions around the UK. There are currently 442 credit unions in the country, with just over 1.5 million members.
Gareth Evans, who produced An Insight Into Credit Union Membership alongside his co-director Mick McAteer, attended the annual conference of the Association of British Credit Unions in Manchester, where he discussed the report with Co-op News.
“The wealth of information that we’ve gathered on this programme is huge and it gives us an insight into credit union members that’s not been done before,” he said.”
The centre has spent 10 years working with credit unions, housing associations, banks and building societies, says Mr Evans, “but credit unions are where we see a real opportunity to localise facilities that have a great impact if you get more people using them and build the capacity of credit unions.
“This piece of work came out of a Barclays’ programme that’s in the final year of a four-year programme – turning support for credit unions on its head, not just giving funding but also expertise.
“They parachute a team into a credit union to address its core issues – if its not lending enough, marketing, governance – so they can thrive, grow and support more people.
“We’ve worked with 30 credit unions, we evaluate the impact of the work. We wanted to measure the key financial indicators so we could measure that. The key question was whether it trickles down to the members.”
The high satisfaction rate shows the virtues of credit unions – but these are not promoted enough, says Mr Evans. “Once someone is in a credit union, the vast majority love it and won’t leave – so why aren’t more people joining?
“The survey told us 79% of members have saved – setting up resilience in households – and 49% had taken out a loan with a credit union. The need is out there.
“What we want credit unions to do is use that information to promote themselves. If we can tell people that others are so satisfied with a credit union, it could encourage more people to join.”
