Fair4All Finance launches Covid-19 Resilience Fund and Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme

Monday 15 January 2024

Fair4All Finance is launching two programmes to help the affordable credit sector emerge from the Covid-19 crisis in a resilient state and to scale it thereafter.

The Covid-19 Resilience Fund will provide up to £5m in grant funding to CDFIs and credit unions in England in April . Then an expanded Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme will help the sector to play its part in the 10x growth challenge in the delivery of affordable credit to people in vulnerable circumstances

The Covid-19 Resilience Fund will provide short-term grant funding to help providers to deal with temporary shortfalls in income and additional operational costs due to the crisis.

Fair4All Finance expect to be able to support some  50 organisations with up to £5m of funding with grants that will range from £20,000-£350,000 in size . The fund is designed to support organisations which already have a track record of sustainably serving customers in vulnerable circumstances.

The Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme is designed to provide a tailored support to sustainably scale affordable credit as part of the wider transformation of financial services to better meet the needs of people in vulnerable circumstances.   This Fund builds on its pilot programme which has been running since August 2019. The five organisations on this pilot programme – Enterprise Credit Union, Fair for You, Five Lamps, Leeds Credit Union and Moneyline – all received support tailored to the needs of their organisations to help them to scale. Programme decisions and investments will follow a business diagnostic process and will be made from September 2020

ABCUL CEO, Robert Kelly, said: “ABCUL warmly welcomes the announcement of the Covid-19 Resilience Fund and the Affordable Credit Scale Up Programme by Fair4All Finance.  The current crisis presents significant challenges to the financial well-being of so many parts of society all across the country and the affordable credit marketplace will be instrumental in supporting households in both the short and longer term.

“In particular the credit union sector has a long track record of building financial resilience, promoting safe saving and providing ethical and innovative lending products.  These support measures will undoubtedly assist credit unions across England underpin their own immediate business risks as well as provide opportunities to press ahead with strategic development and transformation plans in the future.  Fair4All Finance have enabled a genuine collaborative and consultative approach in building these programmes and we look forward to supporting both initiatives and solidifying our relationship in the weeks and months ahead”