Fair4All Finance April activity update
Welcome to the first Fair4All Finance update since our launch at the end of February. To start, we want to say thank you for all of the positive and supportive messages we’ve received from our stakeholders and the wider sector.
Connecting and collaborating
Since launching the key focus of our work has been on exploring how we can help affordable credit providers to scale. We have already met with many affordable credit providers and other key industry groups to progress this work.
We want to work collaboratively to determine how access to affordable credit can be scaled and make sure our work is additive. We know this needs a joined-up effort from regulators, government, investors, credit scoring agencies, distribution channels, debt support and many others. Please do email us at hello@fair4allfinance.org.uk if you think you can help us with this work.
Key highlights
- Following the launch, we had 200+ people sign-up to stay updated on our progress and currently have 215 Twitter followers.
- We have held initial meetings with many organisations, including from the financial inclusion sector, financial services, affordable credit providers and key sector funders including SFGB, the End High-Cost Credit Alliance (EHCCA), Just Finance, the Financial Inclusion Commission, Responsible Finance, BSC, Big Issue Invest and Fair by Design.
- We have recruited an interim team, which comprises of Linda Stevens (Interim COO), Tom Lake (Strategy and Policy), Leonie Jarrett (Interim communications), and I am delighted to welcome Sacha Romanovitch (ex-CEO Grant Thornton) who has just joined us this week as a consultant to help lead our work on financial inclusion with a focus on affordable credit. Sacha is also Co-Chair of the Inclusive Economy Partnership.
- We have focussed on our first priority, as set out in the Big Lottery Fund Report; affordable credit. Our initial view is that we need to segment the customers in this market and work with lenders who target the most vulnerable customers who need affordable credit (but for whom credit is not unaffordable).
- We have developed an initial activity map of what needs to be done in the affordable credit space, this will be used to determine priority activities for Fair4All Finance and to identify where other key stakeholders are contributing and ensure that what we do is additive.
Thanks for taking the time to read about what we’ve been up to. We look forward to updating you on our progress again soon!