Fair4allfinance Forum

Applications are open for credit union leaders including Chief Executives, Board Chairs and other senior leaders to join the Credit Union Transformation programme Advisory Group. The programme aligns to the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, and aims to support the doubling of participation in credit unions by 2035, while strengthening financial resilience for underserved communities. Fair4All Finance is working with stakeholders across the sector to deliver the Credit Union Transformation Programme, supported by up to £30 million of dormant assets funding. The programme’s ambition is to support the systemic change demanded in the Credit Union Sector Growth Plan , helping to drive growth, strengthen sustainability and increase participation in credit unions. A key part of this work is ensuring that Programme priorities and decisions are informed by the practical experience, leadership and insight of the sector itself. Therefore, Fair4All Finance are seeking applications to join the newly established Credit Union Transformation Programme Advisory Group. The group will provide strategic advice, challenge and guidance throughout programme delivery. The Advisory Group will bring together representatives from across the credit union ecosystem, including government, regulators, sector bodies and other subject matter experts. It will play an important role in helping to shape priorities across areas such as: Regional collaboration and consolidation Shared services and CUSOs

At Fair4All Finance we’re proud of the difference our work has made so far, collaborating with brilliant people across financial services, civil society, government and regulators. As our organisation and portfolio of work continues to grow, we’re evolving how we work together to build on our successes and deliver even greater impact for the people we’re here to help. Bringing our key programmes together We’re bringing our key programmes together into a new Impact Delivery function, headed up by Holly Piper who is stepping up to become Executive Director – Impact . Holly has led our Investment Team with distinction over the last six years, building our £40m Affordable Credit Scale Up portfolio, launching our Guarantees Pilot and delivering key Resilience Funds through the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. Before Fair4All Finance, Holly led CAF Venturesome’s social investment fund. The new Impact Delivery function will cover all of our work delivering impact across four areas, with the following new appointments: Jake Attfield is stepping into the role of Associate Director to lead on Insurance, Savings and Financial Resilience David Coombs is stepping up to Director of Investment to lead on Affordable Credit Lakshmi Holmes continues as our Head of Financial Capability and Diane Burridge continues to lead our Innovation and Development work as Director. We’re also making some broader changes to how we’re organised. Included in that, our Director of Policy & Strategy, Tom

Following a successful seven years in post, our Director of Policy & Strategy, Tom Lake, is leaving Fair4All Finance in the new year. Tom has played a crucial role in our story so far, helping to set up Fair4All Finance in 2019 as the recipient of dormant assets funding for financial inclusion in England, and developing our early strategy and focus areas. He has continued to lead strategy and policy, along with our research and influencing programmes, through pivots during the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, forging close working relationships with stakeholders across government, civil society and financial services. Tom will spend his last few months at Fair4All Finance supporting the use of dormant assets funding for financial inclusion in Scotland, working with Social Investment Scotland. ‘Tom has made an exceptional contribution to Fair4All Finance in his time here, helping to bring the organisation into being and shaping our strategy and ambition from our earliest days. Tom will leave with our sincere thanks for his hard work and for everything he has brought to the organisation and financial inclusion as a cause.’ Kate Pender, CEO ‘In seven years Fair4All Finance has gone from a bold idea to an organisation which makes a huge difference to financial inclusion through dormant assets funding and its brilliant team. It’s been a privilege to play a part in that success story from the very beginning, and I’m especially proud of our work to shine a light on the financ

The Oversight Trust has set up a panel to carry out the second independent review of Fair4All Finance. We are inviting stakeholders who are interested in contributing to get in touch with the panel and share their views. Background The Oversight Trust is responsible for overseeing the companies that have received funding under the English allocation of Dormant Asset monies including: Better Society Capital (BSC), Access – the Foundation for Social Investment, Fair4All Finance and Youth Futures Foundation. Each year we commission a review and report on one of the four Operating Companies (in turn) with a view to assessing how effective they are in achieving the mission they were set up to deliver. This year we are launching the second Quadrennial Review of Fair4All Finance, and we want to hear what you think. ( The first Quadrennial Review of Fair4All Finance, published in January 2023, can be found under Publications on our website .) Reviewers The Panel set up to perform the review comprises: Keith Leslie Magdalene Bayim-Adomako Sarah Forster The Secretariat for the Review will be provided by William Brackwell. The Review Process Over the coming weeks the Review Panel will look at Fair4All Finance’s key achievements and consider strategic issues where it believes further attention may be required for sustained success. The Review Panel will approach many stakeholders directly, and all interested parties are invited to respond by providing input to the process in writing. Res

Faster, high-tech payments mean little if they lock out millions. With critical decisions underway on the UK’s future retail payments infrastructure, Fair4All Finance CEO Kate Pender writes about the importance of inclusive payments . Payments are changing quickly. New infrastructure, Open Banking, digital identity, new forms of digital money and AI all have the potential to reshape how we pay. That creates a real opportunity. But success cannot simply be measured by whether payments become faster, more digital or more technologically sophisticated. The test has to be whether they work better for everyone – including people who are currently underserved, people who need help managing their money, and people who risk being left behind as financial services become increasingly digital. These are not niche concerns affecting a small group of consumers. Millions of households deal with volatile incomes, millions of people rely on others for help with digital banking, and many people remain digitally excluded. The way payments are designed can therefore have a significant impact on people’s ability to manage everyday financial lives. That is why Fair4All Finance has joined a broad coalition of consumer and civil society organisations in supporting A Consumer Vision for Payments . It sets out a shared ambition for a payments ecosystem that builds people’s confidence, gives them greater control and ensures they can access the support they need. From vision to infrastructure The Gove

We welcome the opportunity to respond to HM Treasury’s Access to Banking Services Review Call for Evidence. Our response makes the case that access to banking should be treated as a core financial inclusion issue, not simply as a question about the future of branches. As more services move online and physical banking infrastructure continues to shrink, some people risk being pushed further away from the support they need. This includes people who rely on cash, lack digital confidence, face accessibility barriers, or need human support at moments of stress or complexity. We believe essential in-person banking should be defined more broadly than cash withdrawal and deposit. People may need help with fraud, payment issues, account access, bereavement, power of attorney, financial difficulty and referrals into wider support. Access to banking also has links to wider financial inclusion, including access to affordable credit. Where banks cannot lend safely within their own risk appetite, customers should not simply reach a dead end. In-person access points can play an important role in connecting people to appropriate alternatives, including credit unions, CDFIs, debt advice and income maximisation support. Current provision, including bank branches, Post Office banking services, banking hubs, ATMs and digital banking, is important but incomplete. Future access policy should protect cash and non-digital routes for those who need them, strengthen Post Office banking and banking hub

Across the UK more than 20m people live with low financial resilience. They face daily struggles to access basic tools like affordable credit, savings buffers or insurance to protect against unexpected life events – financial products and services that many people take for granted. Tackling this challenge isn’t just a moral imperative, it’s an economic catalyst. Research commissioned by Fair4All Finance shows that eliminating financial exclusion could add £6.4b to the UK economy every year. We can absolutely close the inclusion gap, and at Fair4All Finance we know that this can only be done by working together across the sector to increase financial resilience, boost access to affordable products and services, and ultimately improve lives. Our Annual Review looks back at what we’ve achieved together in 2025 and the work ahead of us in 2026 and beyond. You can read our Annual Review for 2025 below: Read our 2025 Annual Review here Read our 2025 Annual Report and Accounts here Our work together is making a difference A National Financial Inclusion Strategy The £6.4bn growth opportunity Laying the foundations for Small Sum Lending Consolidation Lending Pilots Community Finance Resilience Fund 2025 in Numbers 0 % year on year growth in affordable credit responsibly lent to people with low financial resilience by our Affordable Credit Scale Up Programme investees £ 0 m now committed through our Community Finance Resilience Fund across 47 community finance organisations focussed on

Fair4All Finance has responded to the Lords Financial Services Committee’s inquiry into the regulation of the consumer insurance market. Insurance plays a vital role in financial resilience, helping people manage risks and avoid financial shocks. However, many consumers continue to experience barriers to accessing affordable and suitable insurance products. Our response calls for a stronger focus on financial inclusion within insurance regulation and sets out practical steps to ensure the insurance market works better for people with low financial resilience. We encourage policymakers and regulators to: Tackle the poverty premium in insurance , including taking stronger action on premium finance charges, which continue to impose significantly higher costs on consumers who cannot afford to pay annually. Strengthen regulatory expectations and incentives to improve access to insurance , encouraging firms to develop and distribute products for underserved groups rather than focusing solely on existing customers. Support innovation in product design and distribution , including testing approaches that reduce friction and increase take-up among groups with low insurance coverage, such as social housing tenants and people on precarious incomes. Greater regulatory focus on access, affordability and inclusion would help ensure that more people can benefit from the protection that insurance provides. Read our full response here The post Fair4All Finance responds to the regulation on th

New FCA regulations have come into force on Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). BNPL, also known as Deferred Payment Credit (DPC) schemes, had not previously been subject to FCA regulation, a situation which the government described as a ‘wild west’. This new regulation means that consumers choosing BNPL products will be required to pass affordability checks before being offered credit. As we highlighted in our February report ‘ Buy Now Pay Later: A review of the markets, risks and trends ’, BNPL is more of a symptom of low financial resilience than a cause of it. Our research found that while new safeguards are essential, they could come with major trade-offs that will directly impact the borrowers who need flexible credit the most. As Fair4All Finance CEO Kate Pender explains below, while this regulation is welcome, there is a concern that over cautious regulation may remove consumers from the market at a rate disproportionate to the harm being caused. In effect, there is potential that the regulation could cause harm to the consumer groups which it is trying to protect. ‘New Buy Now Pay Later regulation could create a credit cliff-edge for up to 30% of current BNPL users. While regulation is clearly needed and welcomed, our recent research found that nearly half of those likely to be rejected have not missed a BNPL payment, so there’s a real risk that many people who currently use BNPL responsibly could be unfairly excluded. The need for credit doesn’t just disappear when you can’t

We’re pleased to launch the Guarantees Pilot for Affordable Credit, a new £25m+ impact investment programme designed to support responsible lenders and their investors to expand the provision of affordable credit to people with low financial resilience who are currently poorly served by mainstream providers. We’re looking to work with non-bank commercial lenders and community finance providers (CDFIs and Credit Unions) who are lending responsibly – providing much needed short-term, small-sum affordable credit to millions of people with low financial resilience. Through the pilot we will make initial impact investments of around £1-5m (with potential for follow-on funding) for responsible lenders primarily in the form of funding guarantees, lending (or partial bad debt) guarantees, junior debt and, where appropriate, modest ancillary grants. The Guarantees Pilot for Affordable Credit will also help build the evidence base for a government-backed guarantee to scale the provision of affordable credit even further. This is part of our broader mission to ensure that the 20 million people with low financial resilience can access fair, appropriate and affordable financial products and services. More details are set out below, including how to apply. Why the Guarantees Pilot for Affordable Credit is needed We know that access to small sums of short-term credit, when lent fairly and responsibly, can be vital in helping people build their financial resilience to deal with unexpected co

In November 2025, the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy announced a new £30 million fund to support credit union transformation in England, naming Fair4All Finance as delivery partners. We have been consulting with the Credit Union Sector through a series of roadshows in Manchester, Birmingham and London, as well as through our Credit Union Transformation Fund Consultation, which ran online in February and March of this year. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the online consultation, attend one of our roadshows, or in many cases both. Contributions throughout the consultation were very thoughtful and rich in views and ideas and thank you for your transparency and candidness. The roadshows had 122 participants, while the consultation received 54 responses from 27 credit unions, 10 tech providers, 6 credit union services, 4 consultants, 3 trade associations, a public body, and three others. It’s clear that the time to act is now. The Financial Inclusion Strategy, the Credit Union Sector Growth plan and our £30m credit union transformation funding are all aligned to drive the change needed. Read about our vision and thinking behind the Credit Union Transformation Fund . We commissioned New Philanthropy Capital to help us collate and analyse consultation responses The consultation and roadshows both found broad support for credit union transformation and growth in the sector. However, crucially, our findings show this support is conditional, not uncondit

Fair4All Finance has responded to the FCA’s consultation on reviewing the financial promotion rules for consumer credit. The consultation proposes simplifying parts of CONC 3, the FCA’s rules on consumer credit financial promotions, and considers how cost of credit information, including APR, could be improved to support better consumer understanding. Simplification of CONC 3 We broadly support the FCA’s objective of simplifying rules that are outdated, duplicative or can be more effectively delivered through the Consumer Duty. However, the Consumer Duty should not be treated as a complete substitute for all specificity. Some rules, triggers and examples help firms understand what good practice looks like in real situations, particularly where consumers have lower financial resilience, restricted access to credit, lower confidence navigating financial products, or characteristics of vulnerability. Where detailed provisions are removed, we think the FCA should make clear that expectations have not been lowered and should preserve important examples of consumer harm through guidance, supervisory messaging, or good and poor practice publications. This is particularly important for smaller firms, community lenders and social lenders with more limited legal, regulatory or compliance capacity. APR and the cost of credit We welcome the FCA’s review of APR and the opportunity to comment on this important topic. For short-term, small-sum credit, APR can behave counterintuitively and m