The Church of England starts a credit union

By Alison Lesley --
17 Feb 2015 --

In a move that has pleasantly surprised many of its members, The Church of England has decided to take steps towards making its own credit union.

It has been called unprecedented for a religious entity to open a financial institution in its name, the Church of England is doing so for very selfless reasons. According to the Archbishop of Canterbury, this credit union will be created with the sole purpose of providing support for the communities that are served by the church.

Churches’ Mutual Credit Union

The name that was decided upon was Churches’ Mutual Credit Union. The current program is only open to church workers, but will become available to all others within months. The idea is to give some 60,000 church workers access to the program so that they can begin to use and invest in the credit union before the entire program is opened to everyone. The credit union officials estimate that hundreds of thousands of people will eventually use the Churches’ Mutual Credit Union. Their reasoning is that it has an ethical basis that will help allow for the development of community links between the financial sector and the religious sector.

Putting Their Money Where Their Mouth Is

The ultimate goal of the Churches’ Mutual Credit Union is to develop a financial institution that is willing to fight poverty and have high ethical standards for finances and lending. In essence, they are putting their money where their mouth is by working to actively become a solution for people who need access to money but do not want to be victims to predatory loans. For example, the credit union is rolling out a low APR loan for vehicles that will allow members of the church reach out to the community and make traveling much easier.

Have you heard ‘Churches' Mutual Credit Union Launch’ by The Church of England on #SoundCloud? #np https://t.co/aczXXg1sm1
— CMCU (@CMCU3) February 14, 2015

More than anything, the church has stated that there is a widening gap between the rich and poor in the nation, and that this can be the beginning of a way to close that gap. By giving more people access to money without trying to make incredible profits off of them, the Church of England’s credit union can truly help people in a meaningful way. They hope to help in other areas as well, such as job creation and training so that more people can live up to their full potential.

With an ethical source of money and the full support of the Church of England, this new credit union is causing excitement all across the nation, with many people watching to see what effect it will have all aspects of the economy.