How was the 2025 International Year of Cooperatives for you and your organisation?
2025 has been a year of change and emerging opportunities for Abcul and the credit union sector. I took on the chief executive role in June 2025, taking over from Robert Kelly who did a fantastic job of steering the Association during the uncertain years of the pandemic.
It’s an exciting time to come into the role as a number of major opportunities to grow the credit union sector in the UK emerge. We have a government with an ambition to double the size of the co-operative and mutual economy and it has been rewarding joining the Mutual and Co-operatives Sector Business Council which brings together sector leaders to decide how we go about achieving that aim and to clarify the many benefits of doing so for society.
For credit unions, a major part of the contribution we can make is in financial inclusion. We live in a country where more than 20 million people live in financially vulnerable circumstances. More than a quarter of adults don’t even have £100 in savings set aside. To live with such precarity is a huge burden of stress and worry which we see showing up in low productivity and record levels of mental illness.
Given this backdrop, we were delighted to see HM Treasury’s Financial Inclusion Strategy include a £30m commitment via Fair4All Finance to the transformation of the credit union sector. The Strategy also confirmed a major liberalisation of the “common bond” regime to support credit union expansion.
Finally, the FCA and PRA published a report on 5 December – the Mutuals Landscape Report – which addresses their view of the doubling agenda. It commits to a major review of credit union regulation alongside proposals already underway to support collaborative credit union service organisations (cusos) which are ubiquitous across credit union systems globally.
What are your hopes for 2026?
As we look ahead into 2026, then, we have landmark legislative reforms to the common bond, a wholesale review of regulation and a major capital investment in the sector to look forward to. There is also the small matter of elections in Scotland and Wales with a chance to secure further policy support.
Our job will be to ensure that these initiatives are delivered to maximum effect, with strong buy-in and a collective vision of the sector’s future behind them. If we can achieve that then 2026 may go down as a truly pivotal year for British credit unions.
