Lloyds Banking Group have unveiled details of their £4m package of support for Credit Unions- The Credit Union Growth Plan. There are four separate elements of the Growth Plan:
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Signposting more customers to Credit Unions– The bank plans to signpost more of their customers to Credit Unions. This will expand on the pilot project they started with Leeds Credit Union which led to 2,000 customers taking away information about Credit Unions.
- Shared expertise– The group will second two full-time staff to the Credit Union Expansion Project (CUEP)
- Collaboration– They are financing the pilot stage of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Church Credit Champions Network which will train at least 300 Credit Champions.
- £4m grant fund– Over a four year period there will be a fund of £4m which will assist Credit Unions who can demonstrate strong and viable proposals for growth. The fund will be managed by the Credit Union Foundation and a newly appointed Grants Committee. There are two types of grants available:
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- Grants of between £50,000-£100,000 to help remove barriers to growth and innovation.
- Seed funding of between £10,000-£20,000 which will allow Credit Unions to make the changes to allow a full award in subsequent years or to pay the costs of a merger. Up to £400,000 of the fund has been set aside for seed funding.
Applications for grants for the first year of this Fund can be made from 1 July 2014 with a closing date of 5pm 31 July 2014. Decisions on funding will be made in December 2014.  Â