Applications open for Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme
We are pleased to announce that applications are now open for the next phase of our Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme, which we launched last month alongside our fund to support the resilience of the sector through the Covid-19 crisis.
As part of our wider work to create a fairer and more accessible financial system, this programme is designed to increase the provision of fair and affordable credit by 10x, and to help the sector develop a sustainable model for serving people in vulnerable circumstances.
Watch our CEO Sacha Romanovitch introduce the Affordable Credit Scale-Up Programme:
Successful organisations will be given support tailored to their unique needs, informed by the organisations’ own assessment of needs and our detailed due diligence process. Support could comprise of either long-term equity-like investment or debt funding, grant funding to develop organisational capacity and capability, or a mixture of all.
The Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme is designed for ambitious organisations that are operationally sustainable, with a proven track record of serving customers in vulnerable circumstances without reliance on grant income. We are seeking applications from these organisations and please only apply if you are at this point. There will be future opportunities to engage with us for organisations earlier on their growth journeys.
The programme builds on our pilot programme which has been running since August 2019. The five organisations on this pilot programme – Enterprise Credit Union, Fair for You, Five Lamps, Leeds Credit Union and Moneyline – all received support tailored to the needs of their organisations to help them to scale.
Full details on the programme, including eligibility requirements and case studies of support given to our five pilot programme partners are available in our brochure, published last month.
To apply to the Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme, please complete the application form along with uploading all of the attachments by 5pm on Monday 22 June.
Please read all the guidance below before starting your application.
To support applicants:
- See here for a detailed set of guidance on what we are asking for, both at this stage and later in the process.
- Click here to download the scale-up fund financial information template. You will be invited to upload this along with other documents once you have completed your application
- Watch the webinar held on Wednesday 3 June for potential interested applicants here.
- Click here to download the customer demographics template.