All too often, lending money to people is seen as a chance to make a profit, rather than as a way to help those people and the wider community. Here at Northern Community Bank, we don’t look at it in that way. We’re a not-for-profit organisation and that means that our loans for poor credit are designed to help our account holders rather than making money from them. We don’t have to generate dividends for shareholders or big bonuses for the members of the board, and any money we do make is used to boost the area in which we’re based.
The first and most obvious advantage of this approach for our account holders is that our loans for poor credit come with the lowest possible rate of interest. We want to make sure that anyone who borrows from us is in a position to pay the loan back without suffering hardship or borrowing more money elsewhere, and so we set our interest rates at a level which is affordable. On top of this, we guarantee that the rate we publish will be the rate which every one of our account holders has to pay. Some lenders may charge more for anyone who has a poor credit rating, but we believe in treating each of our account holders as an individual, rather than simply a number on some database.
The second big plus point of the way we work is that we are committed to making a positive difference to the community surrounding us. To begin with, this means lending to members of that community and giving them the power to spend and make purchases without the stress of worrying if they’ll be able to pay us back. What’s more, every one of our account holders is a member of our co-operative, which means that they’re a part of Northern Community Bank rather than just a customer. Every year after paying for the expenses of running the community bank, we return the surplus profit back to account holders in the form of a dividend and we also use the position we have in the community to offer products such as free life insurance. We also offer the convenience of pre-paid cards and make it easy for people to save at the same time as they are paying back their loans for poor credit.
We keep the application process as simple as possible and deal with account holders on a one-to-one basis rather than via some remote call centre. We’ll only ever lend you an amount which we’re confident you’ll be able to pay back, and once you’ve provided us with all the information we need we’ll reach a decision as quickly as possible. This means you’ll know if you’ve got the loan within two working days and, where possible, on the very next day. If your application is successful the money will be paid instantly into your account, leaving you free to spend it however you wish.
