United Vision: Shaping the Future of the British Credit Union Movement

Thursday 22 January 2026

Swoboda Research Centre and the New Economics Foundation (NEF) are jointly delivering a major two-year research programme, A United Vision: Shaping the Future of the British Credit Union Movement. The project emerged in response to a clear tension facing the sector: while demand for affordable, people-centred financial services is growing – driven by low financial resilience, rising living costs, and other macro-economic and social pressures – credit unions remain marginal within the UK financial system, with growth confined primarily to a small number of specialised disruptors rather than the sector as a whole.

United Vision starts with a simple provocation. It seeks to understand what it would take for the credit union sector to increase its impact and what tangible and implementable steps are needed to get there.

ABCUL is proud to be supporting the United Vision project and the important conversations it is creating for the future of the movement. Ahead of the next engagement event in Edinburgh on Wednesday 28 January 2026, ABCUL sat down with the team at the Swoboda Research Centre to explore the early findings, the strategic choices facing the sector, and how credit unions can help shape a shared and ambitious vision for growth. In this guest blog, Swoboda and NEF outline what the research is revealing so far and how credit unions across Scotland and beyond can get involved in the next phase of the project.

What the research is showing so far

The first phase of work, which kicked off in May 2025, has focused on building an empirical understanding of the sector’s performance over the last decade. Combining a detailed analysis of financial performance data with surveys, interviews, and workshops, early findings suggest that while the movement has made demonstrable progress, it is also confronting deep structural constraints.

Results from more than 225 surveys suggest low overall confidence in the sector’s future. A majority of respondents are concerned about their credit union’s growth strategy, and have limited satisfaction with the sector’s impact. Yet a clear majority believe that the sector should be bigger and more impactful.

Interviews and workshops reinforced this disjunction. Participants consistently highlighted barriers to growth of their credit unions and the sector more broadly, including limited visibility, fragmented representation, governance challenges, gaps in technology, and limited access to regulatory capital. The qualitative findings also suggest a growing divergence within the sector: a small number of credit unions are innovating and scaling rapidly, while many are content remaining smaller-scaled and consistent with what they offer.

Early findings from the first phase of United Vision were presented at Swoboda’s annual conference in Liverpool in November 2025. Slides from that presentation can be found here.

Strategic choices ahead

An emerging finding from the United Vision research is that future sectoral growth is likely to depend on a subset of ambitious credit unions. By investing in digital-first models, implementing organisational efficiencies, scaling collaboration, and emphasising entrepreneurial leadership, these credit unions will choose the ‘fast lane’.

Recognising that different organisations will have different motivations, the United Vision project will aim to set out sustainable paths for a range of credit unions; from those boldly stepping into the fast lane to those content to continue with the status quo. The project aims to clarify the strategic options available, the trade-offs involved, and the system-level changes required to support a stronger, more resilient movement overall.

Get involved: upcoming engagement opportunities

Building on our initial engagement events of 2025 – including a kick-off workshop with credit union stakeholders in Manchester in June, a stakeholder event in London in September, and Swoboda’s annual conference in Liverpool in November – there will be many more opportunities to get involved in the coming months.

Engagement with the sector is central to the success of the project, and 2026 will see a series of opportunities to contribute, challenge and shape the findings:

• At the end of January, we are hosting two credit union workshops in Scotland which will feed into the development of a united vision for the sector:
  • 28 January, 12:00-3:00pm – Edinburgh, open to all credit unions
  • 29 January, 10:00-1:00pm – Glasgow, open to members of SLCU

• We’re also hosting a stakeholder roundtable:
  • 28 January, 3:30-5:00pm – Edinburgh, inviting researchers, consultants, financial inclusion experts, and credit union leaders for a focused conversation on the future of the sector

Later in the year, we will run a series of in-person and online events to share further findings, test ideas, and explore what practical change could look like in different contexts.

Please get in touch with Molly Harris (NEF) if you would like to join us at one of these events.

We encourage credit unions, trade bodies, and sector partners to engage with the project as it develops. United Vision is intended as a shared space for evidence gathering, reflection, and ambition setting to support the sector in shaping its future with clarity and confidence.