Membership
All members are committed to working together to deliver greater impact through collective action, campaigns and public engagement. Membership is a ‘voluntary commitment’ to work as a collaborative, designing and delivering actions together as well as backing the actions and campaigns of individual members. Membership is open to organisations and individuals who share our aims to improve credit for all in the UK. To join the Alliance please use the Contact Us page.
Membership of the Alliance is split into Full Members and Observers. Full Members are organisations or individuals working towards our common goals and on specific actions that match their resources, remit and capabilities. Observers are organisations who are engaged in informing, learning from and participating in our work but cannot be Full Members for reasons of law, regulatory conditions or political freedoms. Observers also engage with the Alliance because of the potential impact on their own work.
Alliance Members
Michael Sheen
As an actor Michael has proved himself equally accomplished on both stage and screen. He is known to many for his award winning performances including Caligula, Frost Nixon and Hamlet and to millions more as a vampire in The Twilight Saga Films and a werewolf in the Underworld Franchise. Alongside Michael’s extensive acting work, he is an Ambassador and Patron of numerous organisations including UNICEF UK, Social Enterprise UK and Credit Unions Wales. Michael is the founder of the End High Cost Credit Alliance.
Professor Karen Rowlingson
Karen Rowlingson is a Professor of Social Policy in the School of Social Policy and Deputy Director of CHASM at the University of Birmingham. She has carried out research on personal finance issues for over 25 years including studies of responsible lending, financial inclusion, financial education and saving policy. From 2016-17 she was the Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Financial Exclusion.
Alliance Observers
Financial Conduct Authority
UK Government
Inclusive Economy Partnership (tbc)
Moneyline
For the last fifteen years Moneyline has been a leader in developing alternative ways to provide financial products to low income households. We are a not for profit social enterprise with a presence in many low income communities in North West England, the Midlands and South Wales through our retail branch network. More recently we are growing our geographical reach with a UK wide telephone lending service. We have lent over £69M in 130,000 loans and put at least £35 million into the pockets of low income households through interest saved had they borrowed from a high cost lender. Our customers save alongside borrowing depositing over £8.5 million into small sum savings accounts. We have joined the End High Cost Credit Alliance to co-create a scalable alternative lending sector that will transform access to credit and savings for the millions of consumers who currently have no other alternative but to access high cost credit for their borrowing needs.
Website: www.moneyline-uk.com
Fair For You CIC
Fair for You is UK’s Number 1 Trusted Flexible Credit Provider, and double award winners at 2017 Consumer Credit Awards including Consumer Credit Champions. Established as a Community Interest Company, wholly owned by a Registered Charity – Fair for You mission is to remove fully the poverty premium attached to buying essential items for the home, and serves lower income households across the UK.We are delighted to be part of the End High Cost Credit Alliance – our independent social impact reports released by our Charity parent (www.fairforyou.org.uk) have shown that the health and wellbeing of the entire family is improved when able to escape high cost credit and use credit that is designed to meet the needs of lower income households, and is affordable to them.
Website: www.fairforyou.co.uk
Scotcash
Scotcash is a UK wide award winning social enterprise that offers affordable loans to customers who have limited alternatives. Alongside a range of other financial inclusion services such as access to bank accounts, savings accounts and money advice, Scotcash aims to help reduce borrowing costs, improve financial resilience and stabilise financial circumstances for low income households. The support and advice Scotcash provides can help lift individuals out of poverty, break the damaging cycle of debt and reduce reliance on high cost credit. Over the last ten years, Scotcash hasprovided over 21,000 affordable loans, collectively saving citizens over £5 million in interest repayments had they taken the same loan with a doorstep lender and helped almost 3,000 unbanked individuals access a bank account. The social enterprise has also provided debt advice to 6,000 individuals and tackled fuel poverty by helping 1500 households reduce their fuel bills. This successful financial inclusion services model is the reason why so many of Scotcash customers tell them that their advice and support has allowed them to turn a corner and, in many cases, provided help when no one else could.
Website: www.scotcash.net
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation funds the charitable work of organisations that are building a more inclusive, creative and sustainable society in the UK. In 2017 we made grants of £39 million towards a wide range of work within the arts, children and young people, the environment and social change. We also have a £45 million allocation to social investments for organisations with the aim of creating social impact – including Fair for You, East Lancs Moneyline, and Our Power.
Website: www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk
Carnegie UK Trust
The Carnegie UK Trust is a charitable foundation, based in Scotland, working across the UK and Ireland. Our mission is to improve people’s wellbeing. We’ve been working on the issue of credit since 2015, undertaking policy, research and advocacy work, alongside practical intervention, to help promote and grow more affordable alternatives for those most in need.
Website: www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk
Barrow Cadbury Trust
Barrow Cadbury Trust is an independent, endowed, charitable foundation. The Trust is the largest of the several dozen Cadbury family foundations.
Our history goes back more than 100 years. The Trust has had a focus on social justice and equality issues from the beginning. Our founders, Barrow and Geraldine Cadbury worked throughout their lives for greater social justice and we carry on in that tradition today in our commitment to bringing about a more just and equal society. Building on our Quaker roots we seek long-term solutions by looking at root causes of inequality.
Website: www.barrowcadbury.org.uk
Sumerian Foundation
Sumerian Foundation has a mission to support social enterprises to achieve lasting impact at scale. Through donations from High Net Worth Individuals, Sumerian Foundation is managing a Facility in the UK that addresses a significant market gap experienced by most social enterprises as they seek to scale-up and access available social investment. The Facility provides both appropriately structured long term funding as well as business skills support tailored to the needs of each social enterprises. This Facility has a focus on supporting the scale-up of social enterprises providing affordable credit, and to date is supporting market leaders including Fair Finance (www.fairfinance.org.uk) and Moneyline (www.moneyline-uk.com).
Centre for Responsible Credit
Credit matters. Over the past thirty years households have become more reliant on credit as the means to secure homes, invest in education and skills, and smooth out fluctuations in income and expenditure. Taken together these uses of credit can be a powerful driver for economic growth. However, people also have problems using credit. They may use the wrong types of product for their needs and may take on too much credit, increasing their sensitivity to income or expenditure shocks, which can result in over-indebtedness, default, and insolvency. These problems have become widespread in Britain today, affecting the health of our communities and our prospects for sustainable economic growth moving forwards.
Financial services markets have also become highly segmented, with low to moderate income households paying the most. ‘Risk based pricing’ gives cheap credit to the wealthiest and penalises the poorest. This is a major driver of wealth inequality in Britain today. Learning the lessons from the global crisis we need to ensure that future credit provision is inclusive, but we also need to balance the demand for credit with responsibility in its supply and use. We need to develop new regulatory approaches and foster innovation to create a credit system that both meets individual needs and supports a fairer and more sustainable economy and society.
The Centre therefore strives to challenge the economic orthodoxy that has led to Britain’s current personal debt crisis. We provide a dedicated resource to monitor developments in our credit markets, research models of responsible provision, and develop practical policy proposals for national and local government. To this end, we provide high quality research, news briefings, and policy driven events.
Toynbee Hall
Toynbee Hall is a leader in financial inclusion services. We have been working directly for over 15 years with people who have suffered from financial exclusion. These are people who have not been able to access basic financial services, like bank accounts, insurance or pensions.
Our work has highlighted the profound impact financial exclusion has on individuals and on their communities. Financial exclusion is not only damaging to the individual, it leads to wider social problems, including evictions, anti-social behaviour and crime.
We have seen, first-hand, the life-changing effect that building financial inclusion has on individuals, families and the wider community. We work with a range of partners to developinnovative projects and share best practice to move towards a systemic approach to tackling financial exclusion.
StepChange Debt Charity
StepChange Debt Charity is the UK’s largest specialist debt advice charity. Last year 620,000 people contacted us for help. We also build on insights gained from the experience of our clients to develop policy proposals aimed at preventing problem debt and reducing the harm it causes.
Our evidence shows many people turn to high cost credit because of the lack of other ‘safety nets’ to cope with unexpected costs or life events such as illness, job loss or relationship breakdown. We estimate that over 1 million people are using high cost credit for essential household costs. These households are particularly likely to be struggling to manage and are vulnerable to falling into problem debt. We support this campaign because we believe that a clear and coordinated policy change is needed to give people better options to meet essential and emergency costs that reduce the risk of falling into severe problem debt.
Responsible Finance
We are the voice of the Responsible Finance industry. We support a strong network of responsible finance providers who are increasing access to fair finance across the UK. Our members provide finance to customers not supported by other lenders. They offer a supportive service and treat people fairly. They are professional social enterprises that re-invest profits to help more people and businesses access finance
Tai Tarian
Tai Tarian is one of the largest social landlords in Wales and has responsibility for over 9,000 properties across the Neath Port Talbot County Borough. We are committed to providing good quality housing and a range of services to help people manage their homes. As a community housing mutual, we continually work to understand the needs of our customers and members to deliver services based on what matters. We are committed to supporting tenants and communities to achieve what works for them in terms money and access to fair credit.
We have been members of the Alliance since its inception and will be fully supporting the local work within Neath Port Talbot.
Neath Port Talbot CVS
Neath Port Talbot CVS is a County Voluntary Council and Charitable Company which supports, promotes and develops the Third Sector locally. As a constituent part of the third sector infrastructure in Wales – Third Sector Support Wales – we have a shared goal to enable the sector and volunteers across Wales to contribute fully to individual and community well-being, through the delivery of support across four strategic pillars: good governance, volunteering, a thriving and sustainable third sector, and effective influencing and engagement.
Supporting organisations, groups and individuals in the sector to be effective, efficient, and sustainable, we enable them to deliver services and activities that improve outcomes for local communities. We also have a critical role in strategic engagement and representation, locally, regionally and nationally, ensuring that the voice of the sector is heard. Through our close connection with communities, voluntary groups, organisations and individuals, we are committed to actively supporting the Alliance to deliver change and working with partners in trialling local actions that will make a real difference to those affected by high cost credit.
Royal Society for Public Health
RSPH is an independent health education charity and the world’s longest-established public health body. Our vision is that everyone should have the opportunity to optimise their health and wellbeing. The Alliance is Chaired by Shirley Cramer, Chief Executive of RSPH and we are actively engaged in shaping the evidence base for the impact on the public’s health and the design of training and engagement for the wider workforce.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an independent organisation working to inspire social change through research, policy and practice.
Our vision is for a prosperous UK without poverty, where everyone can thrive and contribute. Our comprehensive strategy – We can solve poverty in the UK – sets out recommendations for how this could be achieved. We are building on our strategy by working with private, public and voluntary sectors, individuals and communities to inspire debate and action, and to develop solutions.
Young Foundation
We find new ways of tackling major social challenges by working alongside communities, using the tools of research and social innovation.We run a range of national and international programmes, and work in partnership with organisations, leading thinkers and policymakers to achieve this. We have created and supported over 80 innovative organisations including: Which? The Open University, Language Line, Social Innovation Exchange, School for Social Entrepreneurs, Uprising and Action for Happiness.
Professor Sharon Collard
Sharon Collard is the Director of the Personal Finance Research Centre.
She has extensive experience of conducting social research in a policy context and specialises in qualitative research techniques. Much of her research is around money management and credit use among low-income households. She has undertaken research with vulnerable groups, including a study of financially excluded people who use outreach money advice services and several research studies exploring people’s views and experiences of the Social Fund. She has in-depth knowledge of policy around debt, financial exclusion and financial capability.
Over 20 organisations and individuals are going through the full membership review and will be added to the site soon.