Episode 14 A Matter of Life and Debt

Every day, all over the country,

millions of people are struggling to find the cash they need

to make ends meet or to realise their dreams.

40, 60, 80, 100.

-Withdraw £500.

-50, 65.

-Thank you, Lisa.

-OK?

Many struggle to qualify for high-street borrowing,

making them vulnerable to illegal loan sharks.

That first £100 loan leads to another, leads to another.

But there are a growing number of

community banks or credit unions

that are offering a helping hand,

whilst at the same time supporting the local area.

We are looking to offer you a loan.

20, 40, 60, 70, 80.

We've had our ups and downs, like any other family would in a family business.

They gave me the option of what I could afford.

I could actually live again and actually save again.

From household emergencies,

to kick starting a new life or business...

Organic veg boxes!

I am a bit nervous, but I'm still excited.

It's like I'm getting married, it's crazy!

..we're following some of these life-changing stories.

It basically meant that something that I never thought

I'd ever do in my life was actually going to happen.

Without that help,

the transformation to my life would have been impossible.

So it's a win-win situation, really.

Today, a loan helps two brothers get their aviation furniture business off the ground.

Knowing that the person next to you isn't going to

pull the rug out from underneath your feet is worth a lot.

You'd better not do that.

How a mother's death put her young son into debt.

And I didn't pay the electricity bill

cos I didn't know how to do it, so we got cut off.

And they didn't really care that Mum had died,

they just wanted their money.

And a loan for education helps a mum learn an important life lesson.

It was one of the best feelings ever

because I knew I could fund myself.

Consumer credit is on the rise.

With more than 7 million of us in the UK turning to cards,

overdrafts and payday loans to buy everyday essentials.

I ran up debts of about £15,000.

It was very easy to run up that kind of money.

It's estimated that a fifth of the population don't have enough money

to cover emergency costs and, as a result,

many families are at serious risk of falling into problem debt.

I didn't read between the lines because you may be borrowing £100,

but you're going to be paying back 300,

so it just doubles and triples in price,

and that's when things started to get hairy.

But there are other options.

Helen speaking. What's your membership number?

-Can I please apply for a loan?

-Sure.

Credit unions are not-for-profit lenders

that offer ethical financial services

to members of their local community.

50, 80.

-Thank you.

-All right?

-Thank you.

For years, London Capital credit union has been providing

ethical banking services to the local community in North London.

London Capital credit union, this is Trema speaking.

How can I help you?

56-year-old single mum Mayglen has come to the credit union today

for a loan to cover a whole list of things.

Well, I've come to borrow some money.

I've asked for £2,000.

I need to have some work done to my bathroom floor,

to get some money to do some dental work,

and to send my son away for a couple of weeks during the holidays.

While Mayglen has good reasons for needing a loan,

she knows that's no guarantee of a successful outcome.

I'm hoping it'll be a positive decision, but I am a little bit nervous.

As always, I did hesitate before coming.

You know, because the idea of being turned away is quite sort of...

not worrying, but you know, it would be a bit disappointing.

Assessing Mayglen's application is a familiar face,

in advisor Patricia.

Would you like to come over, please, Mayglen?

-Take a seat.

-Hello, Patricia.

Lovely to see you after all this time. I haven't seen you for ages.

-Likewise. How are you?

-I'm fine, thank you.

-Good. Great.

The dentist is all mine.

The bathroom... I had a bit of a surprise when I decided to take up

the cover, and under the sink the floor was all rotted.

So I need to get that fixed, ASAP.

And my son's had quite a difficult year.

You know, one of his best friends died...best friends died.

He's just finished school.

He'll be going on to music college in September.

And I wanted him to have a sort of pleasant enough summer break

before he starts in September.

Just want to... Yeah, so that's your loan application.

You've given us your original bank statement...

-Yeah.

-..and original wage slip.

I just want to make sure there's nothing else in there that you shouldn't get.

The credit union has recently put in place new rules for their loans.

And you've been with us for a little while but there's a new policy now for all members.

You know, if you apply for a loan now,

it'll be six months before you can top up.

-Of course.

-And the reason that is, is to give you time to reduce

your loan balance and also look at your finances.

You may have stuff you want to get rid of in six months' time.

By then, your loan balance will be a little bit lower.

-That's a reasonable...

-Yeah.

-..reasonable time.

-Yeah.

-That's a good idea.

-Yeah, rather than...

You know, some members are in every month and we don't want that.

We want people to have a look at their finances.

Do you really need the money?

-Absolutely.

-And if so, you know, what is it for?

And, you know, you don't want to keep coming in and having loans

and then when you really, really need it,

we can't offer it to you because you've reached your limit.

Credit unions are all about responsible lending, so Patricia

will need to do some checks to make sure Mayglen can afford

the repayments before approving her loan.

Every year, traditional banks reject

around £4 billion of loan applications

from people wanting to start new businesses.

Only 3% of those rejected look elsewhere for funding.

They basically all said no to me.

"Thanks for applying but we're not going to give you a penny."

There are a number of not-for-profit lenders offering government-backed start-up loans...

to people who have a great business idea,

but would struggle to get finance on the high street.

Come on!

When brothers Harry and Ben from Bath borrowed £9,500

from the Fredericks Foundation to start their furniture business,

the sky was the limit.

We saw the concept being executed in America,

creating kind of furniture from aircraft parts.

And we did a bit of research and found that there was no-one

really in the UK doing it,

and that was kind of the reasons behind why we started.

The pair create bespoke fixtures and fittings using bits of scrapped aeroplanes.

They started four years ago

when younger brother Harry had a bright idea.

I spoke to my brother one evening and he said, "What are you up to?"

And I said "Well, I've actually arranged a phone call

"to go and meet with one of the aircraft breakers."

So he wanted to come along.

We had very little money to start with.

We travelled up to facility,

bought a few scrap pieces.

Kind of spent a long time figuring out how to work on them,

and make them look nice.

Basically learned how to become kind of product designers

and makers at the same time because neither of us had any background in that

beyond tinkering with the tractors and always playing around with motorbikes and things.

Yeah, gotta be careful with that, it bangs against the metal.

I think there's something really interesting about aviation.

You know, we're not plane spotters or anything.

We didn't know much at all about aviation.

But even if you don't have a fascination with aircraft,

it's something quite magical and interesting.

We're taking the delivery of an engine cowling

that we've turned into a bar for a client in Richmond, in London.

It's taken longer than expected in the first place.

And there can be no...

..no mess-ups at this point.

-Which way has it got to go?

-That way, down.

-All right?

-Yes. That's it, there.

-I'll get this side.

-OK.

Most small businesses fail within the first five years,

so the brothers needed to get their sums right.

Producing their furniture is costly,

so if it doesn't sell, that means big losses.

This has been like a mammoth build. This has been really, really tough.

Yeah, a really tricky one - the shape of the cowling, taking it off.

Really expensive and really time-consuming.

But it's going to look amazing when it's done and it's going to be in a really beautiful house.

Once it's all set up and in place and the client's happy,

then that's the nicest part, just to feel a bit relieved.

We've never used this colour before.

But it's...

It's nice, isn't it?

The brothers grew up on this farm

and turned the old pigsty into their workshop in 2013.

For 20 years, it was used as a dumping ground.

We spent about nine months renovating it.

We repointed every single brick, relayed all the concrete,

electricity, plumbing, installed a toilet, rebuilt the roof...

Yeah, we kind of set it up for the long term.

This takes you through to the...

to the workshop.

Yeah, so this is basically where we make all our bits and pieces.

As you can see at the moment, we've got a lot of product in here

that we're trying to get out to customers.

Given the size of these pieces and the relatively limited space here,

it gets crowded pretty quickly.

Although they had the premises,

they needed money for tools and to be able to buy the aircraft parts,

which don't come cheap.

We went to the high street banks,

kind of walked in, explained our situation.

The most they could lend us was £3,000 unsecured.

That's when we started to explore alternative lending.

Yeah, so when we first approached the Fredericks Foundation,

we went in asking for £10,000

because we wanted to do a trade show.

The Fredericks Foundation is a community finance initiative

that helps get new businesses off the ground.

Its founder, Paul Barry Walsh,

dealt with Harry and Ben's loan application.

One thing that we quite liked is there's two of them.

Two people working together are more likely to be successful than one.

It's great to have someone to bounce things off.

So that was a factor in their favour, even though we had

absolutely no ideas about taking old aircraft wings and cowlings

and making those into seats and drinks cabinets, and...

Of course it's a massive risk, but isn't it nice to be able to support

something that's completely unique, rather than saying,

"No, we've got no stats, we can't back it"?

Otherwise we get no beauty in innovation and, you know,

obviously, we'd like to support those ideas too.

We came out of there thinking, "Oh, wow, so they've actually just given us close to ten grand

"because they believe in what we're doing," which is a really nice feeling.

And that allowed us to go to our first trade show.

And then that trade show was the first time we took, you know,

kind of, £4,000-£5,000-worth of orders that allowed us to kind of

buy more tools and kind of just grew from there, really.

It didn't take long for the business to flourish.

So we're just working every day, like seven days a week, and

eventually, the business just grew and grew, ending on kind of taking

people on, building this workshop.

And it's really unusual. And then I guess as it grows and grows,

you become more and more passionate all the time.

I'm really happy with it. Yeah, I think it's going to...

When it's all up and running, it'll look amazing.

The Fredericks Foundation also gave the brothers a mentor

to help them grow the business in a sustainable way.

They now have a full-time mentor, which, they meet on a monthly basis,

because running your own business can be quite lonely.

You've only got your own experiences to fall back on.

Having somebody outside can be really useful.

DRILLING

At the time, we were just thinking,

"Let's try and make a living for ourselves.

"Let's just try and give ourselves some stability in life."

And then these guys came along and they were like,

"What you've got's really, really good, really interesting and quirky, and it could be really big."

And at that point, you're like, "Oh, really? Wow, it could?"

And then that's kind of set us down this path,

where we're kind of thinking really big now.

The help and support they received got them thinking about how else

they could grow the business.

They started to look at what they could make with other parts of an aircraft.

-Yeah.

-They're all made from discarded seating fabrics.

They're amazingly high-grade fabrics...

that effectively were going to landfill.

I'd definitely have like a paper aeroplane-style key chain on there.

The issue we had is that we'd never made a bag before, so you kind of have to start from scratch.

We were focusing our entire efforts on making the luggage.

So we thought we'd survive off the sales of the furniture

and borrow the money to create the luggage,

in order for us to take it to market.

That's when we approached the Fredericks Foundation for the second time,

and we asked for another £10,000 loan.

They kind of cleared it within a heartbeat.

Although the brothers hadn't been running the business for long,

it was clear to Paul that they'd struck on a great idea.

They turned over £280,000 last year.

They're employing five people -

two of them part-time,

and obviously themselves.

And now they're going to another phase of their business.

They are going to start a stationery business -

pens, papers - all inspired by airlines,

made out of the aluminium from melted down aeroplanes.

So again, it's a unique product and I think they stand

a very good chance of being successful with that.

This creative pair are always striving

towards their next big idea.

I think it's not only important,

it's vital that we can get dynamic and innovative people off the ground

and working and running in business.

Business is a source of wealth, but also a source of fulfilment.

Not what I wanted to happen, basically.

So, allowing people to realise their dreams, how lovely is that?

We spend most of our time in work, and if you don't enjoy it,

it's not a great life. If you love your work and you're

doing something you're passionate about, isn't that great?

For me personally definitely it's about kind of the challenge,

you know - can we do what we want to do, to set out to do?

Yeah, I guess it's just how motivated you are.

So I think making sure that I'm challenging myself

and I want to get where I want to get to.

-Your right.

-My left, no?

This way.

Working with family has both benefits and challenges.

It has its pros and cons, so being family, there's no holding back.

You kind of think twice about throwing a drill at your business partner.

You don't think twice about throwing a drill at your brother.

You soon come to learn that business is a very cut-throat environment,

where knowing that the person next to you isn't going to pull the rug

out from underneath your feet one day is worth a lot.

You'd better not do that, actually.

Coming at you.

At London Capital credit union,

Mayglen is hoping her £2,000 loan will be approved,

so she can pay for some home maintenance

and send her son, Thomas, on holiday.

You know, you have the mortgage and...

sometimes unexpected things come up.

I don't... I don't...

you know, have lots of luxuries or anything like that.

But just sort of day-to-day living and, as I said,

things come up unexpectedly and sometimes you don't have the money

to cover those things.

We've made a decision on the loan.

Mmm-hmm.

And I'm looking at your loan application, loan's been approved.

-So, all we're going to get you to do...

-Well, that's a relief.

I notice you're going on a holiday...

I want to send Thomas on holiday.

Oh, how long for?

It'll be about four weeks, he's going.

Ah! Take me with you in a suitcase, please.

OK, then. So all I'm going to do now is just get you to...

to sign the loan agreement,

and also to sign the payroll deduction which is the new one,

-cos the amount is different.

-Of course.

-Yeah?

So I'll get you a pen.

So, what you need to do is, for three and five.

So you need to sign here and the date there...

OK. That's lovely. Thank you.

..while I get the agreement ready for you to sign, as well.

It's exactly the result Mayglen wanted.

So I got my loan, so I can get on and plan Thomas's holiday,

get my bathroom floor fixed,

and go to the dentist.

Yeah, I'm really pleased.

For me, it's the kind of essentials, you know, the things I deem...

Yeah, so and that's great.

-Yeah.

-I'm glad you're here.

-Yeah.

-I'm glad you guys are here.

Yeah, I'm glad to see you, too. It's been a long time.

You know, they're wonderful people, all of them,

every single person that I've met, you know, there are often

new volunteers, around, but you know, the treatment is all the same.

It's a very positive sort of vibrant environment and I recommended it

to quite a few people at my workplace.

-Patricia...

-Yeah. Good to see you.

-..I'm so happy to see you.

-Take care.

-Yeah, you too.

-Take care of yourself.

-OK, take care. Thanks.

-Yeah. OK, you're welcome.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Mayglen's long association with the credit union has made it easy for

advisor Patricia to reach her decision.

We look at her bank statements, we look at the way she pays us,

we look at if she misses any payments, things like that,

and if she's ever defaulted and we had any reason

to send out any default letters to her.

We've never had to do that with Mayglen.

Her record is absolutely clean, yeah.

So I was happy to say yes, just to give that...

her son the opportunity to go away on holiday.

In fact, I thought I might get a little bit less than I asked for,

but they did give me what I asked for.

I'm happy.

Still to come, how discovering credit union funding gave a mum

the courage to achieve her goals.

One of the most wonderful feelings that I have experienced.

..and how a businessman turned his life around after losing everything he owned.

Bailiffs have been in to satisfy a debt that you owe.

I just fell on the floor in tears.

Credit unions are ethical lenders

who aim to encourage a responsible attitude to handling money.

When I joined back in 1993, we had about 900 members

and we currently have about 27,000 members.

In south London, they're getting a helping hand

from the local authority with a savings scheme for schoolchildren.

Southwark Council has been handing out £20 vouchers

which children can use

to open an account with London Mutual credit union.

-Hello.

-Hi, how you doing?

-Ready to do that now.

Although mum Kemi is not a member,

her youngest daughter Rachel qualifies for the scheme.

They gave us a voucher of £20 to open.

They give to my daughter in school.

They give them the voucher immediately when they are ten.

And do you have

your child's birth certificate or passport?

One moment.

With the younger generation leading by example,

it might tempt mum to open her own account.

Maybe I will add some of my family into it,

or I myself can start...

can open an account with them.

Once the account is opened,

Kemi hopes her daughter will learn to handle her own finances...

with a little bit of help.

At least with that, with a little fund in the account,

they can take care of themselves by themselves.

So after opening with the £20, I will...do a direct debit

into the account for her, to be contributing towards it.

-So that's your documents back.

-OK, thank you.

Once the account's opened in about two, three weeks' time,

-you'll receive a welcome pack in the post.

-OK. All right.

-And once it's opened as well, we'll also deposit the £20 voucher into her account. OK?

-Thank you.

-Have a nice day. Take care.

-You too. Bye.

-Bye-bye.

Credit unions exist to help members take charge of their own finances

and it's their mission to encourage good money management.

Junior savers are our next generation of our membership,

so we encourage them to save money from the very beginning

to get into the habit of savings.

It's the habit of saving we wanted to encourage.

Any little bit, amount of money, it all helps.

Start building that resilience, you build up a future, you start planning your money.

A couple of pounds a week seems like nothing.

But we will applaud that, because a couple of pounds a week

will give you about £104 a year.

So it can work in a variety of ways for different ages of people.

If money management skills aren't taught in childhood,

it can lead to a lifetime of financial worries.

I worry about perhaps not being able to pay my rent and stuff like that.

That's actually a big worry for me.

I think expenses have gone up,

and people are having to pay a lot more in order to survive, to live,

and so they are getting themselves into debt too young,

and it's just like a noose around their neck.

First two weeks, I'm rich, second...well, third week,

I'm not so rich and the fourth week I'm pretty poor.

Having even a small pot of savings

can prove invaluable when the unexpected happens.

As a teenager, Brian had no idea how to manage money,

so when his mother died when he was just 18,

he ended up in serious debt.

She was a great mother.

I have very fond memories of her.

But she died too soon.

Anything after her death was just bad...

for a very long time.

It was so traumatic for Brian

that he hasn't kept any photographs of his mother

or of that period in his life.

Mum gave me everything she could give me.

We weren't wealthy, so I didn't grow up

in a house full of everything, but it was lovely.

Mum loved me to bits and she did everything for me first,

before herself.

Brian grew up in the Cotswolds. His mum was a single parent.

I think she worked as a typist,

and a cleaner. But she always wanted to be home at three o'clock

to welcome me home from school, so she never had a full-time job.

After a happy childhood, Brian's life changed dramatically

when his mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

She said, "I've been to the doctors, the cancer has come back."

She had it when I was about 14, 15.

She said, "I've got cancer, so I've got about 18 months to live."

And I was in some form of self-denial, shock.

I was doing my A-levels.

The school knew that she was poorly.

What they didn't know is, each day when I arrived home,

she had either been sick from the drugs, she was wasting away,

she was dying, literally, in front of me.

Friends were helping.

Family... Her side of the family were helping.

But I would come home and see her having deteriorated each day.

So that went on until about January, February...

She said, we'll book a holiday, we'll go on holiday.

And I said, "Well, the week you want to go away is football trials."

So we didn't go on the holiday and then she died.

And she died on March 15, '93, at 7.05 in the morning.

And that is a date I always remember, so... Yeah.

Aged 18, Brian found himself living alone and totally unable to cope.

My mum didn't teach me about anything.

She just loved me and said, "So long as you're a good person..."

There was no career guidance.

There was no...

"You need to prepare for adulthood."

I was expected to do my A-levels in ten weeks' time, and run a house.

What's this electricity bill that's just come through?

The gas board want how much?

Council tax, you say?

Rent... Ooh, you have to pay rent?

Oh.

Ooh, food costs money...

and you have to cook it.

Oh, I'm not ready for this. And I didn't pay the electricity bill

cos I didn't know how to do it,

so we got cut off. And they didn't really care that Mum had died,

they just wanted their money. So they fit an electricity meter.

Same with the gas board.

Same with the water.

Rent was taken care of because I was in school.

But running a house is quite difficult, it turns out -

and paying all the bills.

Because he was in full-time education,

Brian only qualified for limited benefits.

I didn't go into school every day because sometimes I'd get up

and I was cold cos there was no heating, or I hadn't eaten.

Cos I was at school, I was entitled to what they called income support.

And I think you got...

18 quid a week, to cover everything.

80p a day for food, then.

Now, a loaf of bread was about 15p back then.

So I ate a lot of bread. And toast.

Not always butter.

Life was a struggle.

And when he finished his exams in June 1994, it got even worse.

The day after I left school, if I didn't fill in a form,

I didn't get my housing benefit, I fell into rent arrears,

and council tax arrears.

And there was nobody knocking on the door saying,

"Right, this is what needs to happen, here's your next steps -

"when you leave education, you will need to work or claim benefits."

Literally, "The day you leave school,

"you must find work or claim benefits and if you don't,

"we'll start charging you rent and council tax," and within ten weeks,

you owe ten weeks' worth of rent and council tax.

Despite mounting debts, Brian was determined to get a degree.

He took up a place at York University,

but he didn't make it past his first term.

I received a phone call from the administrative team.

They said, "The council are on the phone."

"Mr Stoman, we understand you're at university now." "That's correct."

"Well, that's a problem because you took over your council house from

"your mum and if you're not living in it for 32 weeks a year, you can't stay,

"so we're chucking you out, or you've got to quit uni."

So I quit uni, went back to live in the house.

Everything should be fine.

Except, now the local education authority said,

"You've quit university, we want our £6,000 grant back which we paid university, thank you."

Well, I can tell you, in 1994,

£6,000 was about a year's wages for anybody at sort of my level.

So they wanted a year's income, and I didn't have an income.

And the council said, "Because you weren't looking for work and

"didn't tell us you were at university, we want 12 weeks' rent."

So in the space of half a term at university,

I now owed £10,000...

..in 1994...

..with no job.

Brian got himself a job, but couldn't earn enough

to start paying off the debt.

My first job paid 50 quid a week.

So that's the scale of debt.

It was unsurmountable.

I didn't pay it off. I couldn't pay it off.

And so it went to court, and I picked up my first two CCJs...

which, even then, were serious.

A County Court Judgment can be issued when a company makes

a legal claim for money owed.

Brian couldn't pay, so the court enforced the debt using bailiffs.

I remember coming home one day and the door was open. I thought,

"Oh, that's not right." And I walked upstairs and the house was empty.

Pile of cables in the corner.

Been robbed. And then I found the paperwork on the stairs.

It said, "The bailiffs had been in to satisfy a debt that you owe,"

and they'd taken everything. And I just fell on the floor in tears.

Brian was still only 21.

The next ten years were a struggle.

He moved from job to job,

never earning enough to pay off his remaining debts.

I now had the worst credit that you can have.

Nobody asks you for your back story when you're applying for credit.

They look at who you are now, snapshot of your life today,

and make their decision. They don't care why.

Eventually, Brian got a good job in IT,

and was able to start thinking about the future.

That was the beginning...

..of settling all debts,

paying everybody off,

of being able to start to think about a house and a family.

And I'd just met my now wife.

So we were able to start to plan.

When that was, probably about 2002.

So nearly a decade after...

..you know, I'd left school and all that had happened then,

I was able to start to think about...

normality.

By the time Brian was 30, he'd managed to clear his early debts.

But the County Court judgments have had a huge impact on his adult life.

Even when you've paid it off, it stays on your credit file for six years.

I remember being at work and my mortgage broker calling me, saying,

"Brian, you can't have a mortgage."

So getting a CCJ is huge, at all costs to be avoided.

It's massive. It's going to affect you for 10-12 years.

Today, Brian is a businessman running his own IT company,

after getting a government-backed start-up loan

from an ethical lender in 2016.

I've often thought about what advice I would give my younger self

and overall, it's not to get into debt, isn't it?

But I think it's clear that debt can sometimes just happen.

Possibly through your own fault, but sometimes not.

The best way to get out of debt is to earn money.

That's it. So if you fall into debt, call them, explain your situation,

ask for a year, and then go and find ten jobs.

Clean, cook, drive.

And get as much money as you can, and clear the debt.

For people on a tight budget,

credit can be a great way of spreading the cost of large purchases,

but only if repayments are made on time.

Non-payments of debts can lead to court orders which can affect your

credit rating and therefore your ability to borrow in the future.

It's a really good idea to know what your credit score is, because

it's what lenders look at when they're considering whether you're a suitable person to lend to.

Now, there's a lot of TLC you can give your credit report.

The first thing you should do is check it regularly.

You can do that for as little as £2 or you can sign up for free to do it

with some credit reference agencies.

You should look on there to make sure all the information is correct,

that there's no debts that you haven't got,

that there's no addresses that it says you've lived at which you haven't,

and also that there are no financial links to people

that you've never had an account with.

If there is, that's a clear sign you need to address it

as it could impact the cost and your ability to borrow down the line.

Whatever you need credit for - a mortgage,

to start a business or to finance buying a car or a holiday,

your credit rating is important.

There's no way that a bank would have considered her for a loan with the credit score that she had.

It was extremely low. It was a real risk.

But we like... We sometimes take risks,

because that's what we're about.

We're about helping people in the community, if we can possibly do it.

-Hello.

-Hi.

With a poor credit rating, borrowing on the high street can be difficult.

Banks don't necessarily have the facility for all these nuances of

how people manage their lives.

They've got their commercial rules on how they operate.

We don't have those in quite the same way.

There are rules about credit

but they're not about credit scores, for instance.

Credit unions and other ethical lenders can help people who've got into trouble.

We are basically here to help the community.

And we are for the people

that maybe the high street banks feel are too much of a risk.

So we are willing to take that risk with these members

and hopefully maybe rebuild their financial history as a whole,

because obviously, if you do repay back loans, that would...

that would actually improve your credit scoring.

In Leicester, Clockwise credit union has 10,000 members

with more than £3 million in savings.

In 2010, they gave single mum Marina a £1,000 loan to fund her studies.

Today I'm at Leicester College.

I have an appointment with my assessor.

I have to hand in my assignment.

For 38-year-old Marina, education has been a passport

to a better life for herself and her two daughters.

Education indeed has been one of the most important aspects

of me growing up and of me excelling later on in my professional career.

I couldn't have done it without the education.

Originally from the Greek island of Crete,

Marina came to the UK alone when she was just 17 to study English.

I would never forget that day when I moved here in the UK,

it was on the 23rd of September 1996.

I was in London, in the underground.

Now, bear in mind, I grew up in a very small fishing town

where we didn't even have no traffic lights

or actual big roads.

So, suddenly arriving that evening, in London...

Wow! It's an experience I will never forget.

Now I was trying to remember all the English phrases and language

that I had learnt at school.

I couldn't say anything apart from "Hello, my name is..."

So it was very difficult for me to communicate.

I was very brave, looking back now.

I don't think I could do it at this age.

But then I was very, very brave indeed.

OK, have you started?

I have started the sort of, part A of the book.

But I have...

Marina passed her English course and decided to stay in the UK.

She now has two daughters and works in sales at a high street store.

Over the last 20 years, she 's continued to study

to gain qualifications that would progress her career.

To try to improve as a person,

it is a great worry to want to improve within the career

and, you know, the only way to do that,

to show that commitment to your employers, as well, is by trying to

furthering and bettering yourself, and to do that...is education.

Knowledge. And then applying that knowledge for the work that you do.

Paying for her education hasn't been easy.

In 2010, she was working in social care

and decided to enrol on a business studies course

to help her into a higher paid job.

But the course fees were almost £1,000.

I felt quite disheartened because I knew there is no way I could ever

afford this amount of money.

I didn't have the extra.

My wage was just enough to cover my rent

and our needs as a family.

I didn't have no extra money at all to finance myself for my level four

in business studies. I thought working on two different jobs,

morning and night, but then that was completely out of the book,

because I wasn't able to...

I didn't have anyone to look after the children in the evening.

So I decided to approach my bank,

with who I have been for so many years,

and possibly go down the path of taking a loan

and finance myself in paying my course.

The bank was giving very high interest for the loan that I was

looking to take, and that frightened me.

It frightened me a lot.

Marina asked her work colleagues for advice.

They recommended Clockwise.

One of the advisers there is Joe Green.

When you meet Marina, the first thing that comes across is that,

first of all, that she's a very lovely person to speak to, but she's

very driven, she's very fixed on the things that are important to her.

I thought I would never lose any chance by calling them.

The staff member had the time to listen,

asked me to bring more details of my finances -

how much money come in the house,

and why did I need the loan?

How would that loan help me?

Marina's circumstance was actually a really good example of the kind of

people who come to see us.

She had a job but she supplemented that income with tax credits and

child benefit but the problem that she had is high street banks often

won't count benefits such as tax credits as income.

So Marina had X amount per month coming in, but a really sizeable

chunk of that was effectively zeroed off by a lot of the people

she went to look for money from.

After assessing Marina's ability to pay back the loan,

the credit union had their decision.

Very quickly, within about two or three days,

I received a call and they actually offered me the loan that I asked,

at the time it was £1,000.

It was one of the best feelings ever because I knew I could fund myself.

Marina attended college three nights a week for three years,

while also holding down a job and bringing up her two children.

When I graduated in 2013,

it felt absolutely amazing.

It felt...

..a rewarding sort of experience of walking down the aisle and knowing

that my two young daughters was in that crowd...

..clapping for their mum.

It is one of the most wonderful feelings that I have experienced.

With her business qualification,

Marina started a new career in retail management, and has since

paid back the loan from the credit union that made it all possible.

Being able to go on educational courses that make you

more qualified, that improve your employability,

can only be a good thing,

you don't need to be an expert to work that out.

So Marina is a bit of a dream customer for us, really.

After seeing her mum's success,

Marina's eldest daughter wants to see what help the credit union

can offer her as she prepares for university.

What I'm here today is to find out how Clockwise can help me,

not only with a savings account but perhaps when I go to uni,

all the loans that I will be taking out,

how is it best to manage my money?

So I'm excited to go have a look and see what they say today.

Would you think that Clockwise can help us

to pay the fees for my daughter's university?

Yeah, it's definitely something we can look at.

-Yeah.

-I know a lot of people traditionally go down the route of

borrowing to go to university. It is really expensive.

We can have a chat about that any time you want -

once you're a member of the credit union,

-just come along at any point and we can discuss all the options.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

I think it's a really crucial thing that I follow through

with what they said today as well. I really liked it.

For credit unions, it's all about encouraging

the next generation to be responsible with their money.

-How much are you putting in? What's that?

-£1.

-£1.

-£1, OK.

Since our filming,

Harry and Ben's furniture business has continued to grow.

They've recently fitted out a private airport in Farnborough

and sent a large order over to China.

Like that.

And Marina has passed all the assessments for her course

and she's doing just as well at work.

Her employers are so impressed,

they're arranging extra training and giving her more responsibility.

It is one of the most wonderful feelings that I have experienced.