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
Category: Opinion
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
CLES: Community wealth building – making financial power work for local places
Recent years have seen a growing number of local councils across the UK, including Birmingham, Sandwell and Wigan, as well as the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales adopting community wealth building to develop collaborative solutions… Continue reading
Chancellor will stifle 200,000 businesses if cross-party proposal ignored
20 October 2021 Kevin Hollinrake MP, co-chair of the cross-party APPG on fair business banking, has written to the Chancellor calling for the scaling up of CDFIs (community development finance institutions). If no action is taken… Continue reading
The ‘levelling-up’ lever
According to Michael Gove levelling-up means boosting local leadership, raising living standards, improving public services and giving people necessary resources. The Communities Secretary said last week every government department will be a “department for levelling up,”… Continue reading