FAQs

Like all credit unions, Castlemilk Credit Union is a financial co-operative, owned and controlled by its members.

While credit unions offer many of the same services as High Street banks, they operate a different business model with members electing the directors. Any operating surplus generated from a credit union’s activities is either re-invested in the business or distributed among members by way of a dividend.

Worldwide, credit unions now control assets worth billions of pounds. However, the common ethos is providing ethical financial services to members.

Credit unions offer a range of savings accounts, with members choosing how much – or how little – they want to save. They also offer loan products suited to members’ needs, with the focus being on the member’s ability to afford repayments.

Surveys of customers at banks and credit unions have consistently shown a significantly higher customer satisfaction rate with the quality of service at credit unions.

A credit union is a community of its members, whose aims are to promote their financial wellbeing through savings, affordable and appropriate lending opportunities, and through the promotion of greater financial awareness. Members are the owners of the credit union and the pressure to generate profit for shareholder dividends is therefore greatly reduced. Any surpluses generated by the credit union are redistributed among the members, or retained to develop the business.

The structure and nature of a credit union frequently enables it to help those who are currently excluded from access to ordinary bank products.  It can become a lifeline for people who may otherwise have to resort to payday loans or doorstep lending which often carry incredibly high interest rates.

However, credit unions can benefit savers and borrowers at all ends of the income ladder, with dividend rates often greater than interest rates offered by High Street banks to their savers.

The Common Bond of Castlemilk Credit Union determines who can become a member of the organisation.

Full details of the Common Bond can be found here. However, as a quick guide, admission to membership of Castlemilk Credit Union is restricted to individuals living or working within the G postcode area.

You can join us quickly and easily by completing the application form on this website. To become part of our financial family, access the form here.

Rather than receive a fixed interest rate on their savings, credit union members share in a dividend payment which is based on the surplus earned by the credit union over the course of the financial year.

The level of dividend is recommended by the board of directors and then agreed at the Annual General Meeting of the credit union, which every member can attend. The level of dividend will usually vary from year to year, depending on how successful the credit union has been.

The dividend agreed by the NHS Credit Union for its last financial year amounted to a total payment of around £117,000 to be shared by the credit union members. Each member received a payment equivalent to 0.8% of their savings over the year to September 30. This compares favourably with standard rates offered to savers by many High Street banks.

Absolutely. Like all major financial institutions, we are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The FSCS can pay compensation to depositors if an organisation is unable to meet its financial obligations. Find out more about this scheme here.

We are also authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. This means that we meet strict conditions for trading, we are required to submit information on our financial performance to the regulators every three months and our directors and senior staff are vetted by the regulators.

Personal loans from the NHS Credit Union are available for any purpose be it a new car, an exotic holiday, a lovely wedding, helping with Christmas expenses or home improvements.

There are different types of loan available, with members able to borrow from £500 to £25,000. The key criteria on all our lending is that the member is able to afford the repayments.

All our loans are based on affordability, so as a responsible lender, it is important that we ask you to confirm your income and expenditure. For this reason many loan applicants will be required to send in copies of wage slips and bank statements to show these incomings and outgoings.

This ensures that we do not take unnecessary risks with the credit union’s funds and do not give out loans where we feel it will result in the member getting into financial difficulty. It also means that we can look beyond a member’s credit report to try to help them in every way we can.

If we ask you to provide payslips, bank statements, or any other documentary evidence for a loan request, you should always suppply us with COPIES as we can’t return the documents to the member.

When you are making copies of, for example, bank statements, please ensure all the information is legible and that it covers the dates required.

If you fail to supply the required information, or details are not clearly visible, it could well delay your application.