DWP to support credit unions
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has praised the work done by credit unions to combat financial exclusion. At a recent conference, Minister James Plaskitt said that the DWP had committed £34 million of the £36 million Growth Fund to 80 credit unions and other organizations. He added: ‘I have taken a close interest in the new initiatives and approaches we are here to learn about and discuss today. I am pleased and proud to be able to say that my department is working more closely than ever with yourselves as partners, and as a champion of what you are striving to achieve for people who are excluded.’
He said the effect of this investment would be to make £100 million of credit available to the financially excluded. ‘That’s a £100 million worth of new - affordable credit that should result in thousands of excluded people not having to pay exorbitant interest rates to doorstep lending companies and loan sharks,’ he added.
The minister concluded: ‘I am absolutely convinced that we can do more than is currently provided. We need to apply a good deal of imagination and innovation to working out the best way of achieving our aspiration of seeing far fewer people excluded and far more included in financial opportunity in its most basic forms.’