UK Government policy, credit unions and payday loans

摘要

This article outlines how successive UK governments’ policies first created a threeudtier system of credit unions and then posited credit unions as alternatives to payday lenders.udThe three tier framework is used for an analysis of loans offered on credit union websites.udThe findings indicate that while the first two tiers of credit unions now offer loans to peopleudwho have not saved with them previously, they do so in ways consistent with credit unions’udoriginal character, rather than in ways that replicate commercial payday loans. The otherudtier of credit unions appears unable to offer such loans.