In 2004, a meeting was held in Leatherhead, to gauge support for setting up a local credit union, in order to assist local people who had problems with debt. Many of them did not have a bank account or access to financial services. Out of that meeting came a group of 12 people, who went on to set themselves up as the Mole Valley Credit Union Study Group. They obtained start-up funding from SCC and Leatherhead Rotary Club and registered with the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd, the national body.
ABCUL provided a training session in the Institute in 2005 to which members of a similar group in Guildford were invited. It had become obvious that Leatherhead was too small to have a viable credit union, and Mole Valley was not big enough either. The groups in Leatherhead and Guildford, and also a group from Woking, jointly invited ABCUL to produce a feasibility study for one or more credit unions in West Surrey.
Part of this study was to find out if there was a need for a credit union. A researcher from ABCUL interviewed a group of young parents at the All Saints Family Project in Leatherhead Common in late 2005. After she had explained what a credit union is, she talked individually with the young women and found that most of them were in debt to a doorstep lender. When she helped them work out how much interest they were actually paying, compared to what a credit union would charge, they were keen to join the credit union at once.
The credit union would also encourage members to save, and in due time, to have junior members with their own accounts. It would also offer a home for more wealthy members to invest their money, knowing that in addition to receiving the annual dividend, they would be helping people in their own local community and keeping the money circulating locally.
It has taken 6 more years to set up the credit union. It will cover the whole of Surrey, although at first it will concentrate its efforts in the three home areas, along with the borough of Waverley, who joined in 2009. The Royal Borough of Kingston on Thames plans to join with SurreySave in 2012. Funding has been obtained from the boroughs of Guildford, Woking and Waverley and from Mole Valley Housing Association,Southern Housing Association, Hyde Housing Association and First Wessex Housing Association. Legal and General made a contribution to the operating costs of the credit union enabling us to produce marketing materials for the first year of business.
SurreySave has produced its business plan and supporting policies and procedures, and has a Board of Directors who are all “approved persons” in the terms of the FSA, who awarded accreditation to the credit union in 2011. It has appointed its staff and selected and installed its IT system. During January, those who have pledged their support are making their deposits and becoming founder members. The credit union will launch to the public on February 1st 2012.
To find out more, look on the website, which is www.surreysave.co.uk
Heather Ward
January 24th 2012.