Every day, staff in CDFIs across the UK meet to tackle the question: “How can we enable people, businesses, and social enterprises who are beyond the reach of mainstream banks to thrive?”. Two weeks ago, we… Continue reading
Category: Opinion
The Role of First Loss Funding in Financial Inclusion and Economic Growth
Last October, Responsible Finance launched a pilot to explore first-loss funding’s potential to crowd-in private investment to personal lending CDFIs to help them scale their lending and support financial inclusion. We are monitoring the work closely… Continue reading
“If the challenge is growth, investment is the solution.”
CDFIs want to work with the Government to enable this. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has vowed to lead the most pro-growth Treasury in our country’s history. She has rightly recognised that this means working with… Continue reading
Niall Alexander, Fair4All Finance: “As one door closes…”
30 June 2023: Niall Alexander, Markets and Consumer Insights Manager, Fair4All Finance, on shocking research findings, a new report, and why it’s critical to expand community finance and for policy makers and mainstream banks to accept… Continue reading
Pushing the boundaries of impact measurement for CDFIs: Moving from effective to compelling, by Heidi Fisher MBE
Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) are organisations that provide affordable lending to individuals, businesses and social enterprises that are typically underserved by traditional banks and financial institutions. CDFIs usually have a mission to support community development… Continue reading
Yorkshire’s transition to net zero has roots in one CDFI Loan
When Yorkshire-based CDFI Business Enterprise Fund (BEF) made a start-up loan in 2019 to SeaGrown, a small business devoted to harvesting seaweed, it saw its potential in a way that an online, algorithm driven lender would… Continue reading
Where Next for Guarantees? The CBI and Responsible Finance
A joint blog by Theodora Hadjimichael, Responsible Finance, and Chris Wilford, The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Reports in the Financial Times and other media suggest it’s not a matter of whether there will be a… Continue reading
The sharks’ feeding frenzy and how to starve them
Devastating stories in a new report from the Centre for Social Justice show how easily illegal lenders ensnare ordinary people. It finds nowhere is safe from loan sharks and estimates at least a million people are… Continue reading
Like 2 million people around the world, I too have become hooked on the online word puzzle, Wordle…
Like 2 million people around the world, I too have become hooked on the online word puzzle, Wordle. It has become part of my morning routine as I make breakfast; and as a part-American living in… Continue reading
Fair By Design: The Government must intervene to help financially vulnerable people
Martin Coppack, Director, Fair By Design. Sherisha is a single mum to her 8-year-old daughter. Sherisha used to work full time as a social worker but has had to cut down to three days a week… Continue reading