Croydon, Merton & Sutton Credit Union

Your Community Bank is a not-for-profit credit union that takes members who live, work or study in the London Boroughs of Croydon, Merton or Sutton, and offers savings and loans to those members¹. Membership starts with a £10 initial deposit, and £5 is added to your savings account².

Applications are reviewed and processed within three working days². Savings with the credit union are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £120,000 per eligible depositor, counted across all your accounts with it, including your share of any joint account³.

Your Community Bank is the trading name of a credit union that has been authorised since 2 July 2002, and it appears on the Bank of England's list of UK-incorporated credit unions⁴.

What Croydon, Merton & Sutton Credit Union offers

The credit union describes itself as a savings and loans co-operative, and those two products are the core of what it does¹. Members save, and those savings fund loans to other members. It has no external shareholders, and only members can serve as board directors². Any surplus it makes is reinvested to improve services for all members rather than paid out to outside investors².

That structure is common to credit unions generally. They are run on a not-for-profit basis, and members' savings are used to fund loans to other credit-worthy members⁷. The credit union's own lending policy states that it will never let a member borrow more than they can afford to repay².

For a wider picture of how these organisations work, including the common bond that decides who each one can accept, see credit unions: a complete guide.

Savings

Savings are the entry point to membership. A £10 initial deposit activates your membership, and £5 of that is added to your savings account². From there, members build up a balance over time.

Credit unions across the UK often call savings "shares", because members hold a share in the co-operative rather than being ordinary customers⁸. Each share in a credit union is fixed by statute at £1.00, so the value of a share does not rise or fall with markets⁹. That is a different proposition from an investment: the money is a deposit, not a stake whose price moves.

Members have equal voting rights on a one member, one vote basis, regardless of how much they have saved¹⁰. The credit union's savings products are set out on its own site, including any notice periods, withdrawal arrangements and the rates it currently pays, which change and are not reproduced here. For how savings accounts work more generally, including how interest is calculated and paid, see savings accounts: a complete guide.

Loans

Loans are funded from members' savings, and the credit union assesses each application itself rather than relying on an automated score alone. Its process takes account of your savings and repayment history, disclosed and undisclosed loans, and any debts you have with other lenders¹. It uses credit reference agencies to verify identification and your exposure to other debts, and to report on how loans are repaid¹.

Credit unions generally allow members to borrow more than they have saved once they have been a member for a certain length of time, and the amount is decided by the credit union's own assessment¹¹. That makes the length of your membership and your record of saving and repaying relevant to what you can borrow.

Credit unions are exempt from some of the Consumer Credit Act requirements that apply to other lenders, including certain agreement form and content rules, pre-contract information requirements, advertising standards and credit licence requirements¹². The exemption for regulated mortgage contracts only applies where the borrower receives timely pre-contractual information on the main features, risks and costs, and where any advertising is fair, clear and not misleading¹³.

For how borrowing works across lenders, including what a loan costs and how repayments are structured, see loans: a complete guide.

Junior savings

The credit union offers a Junior Saver account for members under 16². Adults who are not yet eligible in their own right can join through the family route described below, and a child's account is the usual way a household starts saving with a credit union before the child reaches the age at which they can hold membership themselves.

The credit union's own pages set out the terms of the Junior Saver account, including how money is paid in and taken out and who controls the account. For how children's savings accounts work generally, see savings accounts: a complete guide.

Who can join, and how to open an account

Eligibility turns on where you live, work or study. You must be 16 or over and live, work or study in the London Boroughs of Croydon, Merton or Sutton². Family members can also join if they live at the same address as an existing member, even where that address falls outside the three boroughs¹.

This is the "common bond" that every UK credit union must have: a defined group of people it may accept as members¹⁴. For this credit union the bond is geographic, covering the three boroughs and the households of existing members.

To open an account:

1. Check that you live, work or study in Croydon, Merton or Sutton, or that you live at the same address as an existing member¹.
2. Gather two forms of identification, one confirming your identity such as a passport or driving licence and one confirming your address².
3. Apply, and allow three working days for the application to be reviewed and processed².
4. Pay the £10 initial deposit, which activates the membership and puts £5 into your savings account².

If you are outside the three boroughs and not connected to a member's household, you cannot join this credit union, but there is likely to be one covering your area. The trade body for credit unions in England, Wales and Scotland lists them by postcode, and MoneyHelper also explains how to find one¹⁵.

How to contact it and complain

The credit union takes complaints by phone on 020 3468 8568, by email at feedback@yourcb.org.uk, through the contact form on its site, or in writing to Croydon Merton & Sutton Credit Union T/as Your Community Bank, 4th Floor AMP House, Dingwall Road, Croydon CR0 2LX⁶. It aims to respond within three working days⁶.

If a complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction, the credit union writes within five working days of receiving it to confirm it is being looked into further. If it cannot resolve the complaint within four weeks, it writes to explain why and when a final response is expected. All complaints should be resolved within eight weeks, and you receive a copy of the resolution for your records⁶.

If the credit union has not resolved your complaint fully within eight weeks, or you are unhappy with the outcome, you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service⁶. The ombudsman is free to consumers and can look at complaints about credit unions; its decisions are binding on the firm where it upholds a complaint¹⁷. Complaint-handling rules have applied to credit unions in Great Britain since 2002¹⁸.

How your money is protected

Savings with the credit union are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which exists to protect customers if a bank, building society or credit union runs into financial difficulty⁷. The scheme can pay compensation to depositors if a credit union is unable to meet its financial obligations³.

That figure applies to the combined amount in all your accounts with the credit union, including your share of any joint account, not to each account separately³. Most depositors, including most individuals and small businesses, are covered by the scheme³.

If you hold savings in more than one account with this credit union, or in a joint account, the balances count together towards the same limit³.

Credit unions in England, Scotland and Wales gained access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in 2007, giving members deposit protection for the first time⁹. Before that, savings in a credit union did not carry the same protection as money in a bank.

Where credit unions sit in the wider market

Credit unions are a small part of UK savings and borrowing. Around 400 operate across England, Scotland and Wales, serving more than 1.2 million people¹⁵. Across the UK as a whole, adult membership stood at 2.17 million in the first quarter of 2026, a rise of 0.60% on the previous quarter²⁰. Membership had grown for six consecutive quarters by early 2024¹⁸.

Loans to members reached £2.54 billion in the first quarter of 2024, the highest level on record at that point, up 2.88% on the previous quarter¹⁸. By the third quarter of 2025, adult membership had reached 2.16 million, a quarterly decline of 0.84%²¹. The figures move in both directions, and the sector remains small relative to high street banking: in 2022, 1.1% of UK adults, about 0.6 million people, held a credit union loan²².

For a consumer, the practical difference is that a credit union is owned by its members and lends within a defined community, rather than being a bank with outside shareholders. That shapes both what it offers and who it can accept.

How it differs across the UK nations

Credit union rules and the bodies that represent them differ by nation. The Association of British Credit Unions covers England, Wales and Scotland, and credit union finders are listed separately for England, Scotland and Wales, and for Northern Ireland¹⁵.

The legislation differs too. Credit unions in Great Britain operate under the Credit Unions Act 1979, the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and related orders, while credit unions in Northern Ireland are governed by separate legislation⁹.

In Wales, credit unions have been used as a route out of problem debt: Merthyr Credit Union, covering Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent, took part in a Welsh Government pilot council tax debt rescue scheme²³. In Scotland, the Scottish Government has funded credit union development directly²⁴. None of this changes what a member of Croydon, Merton & Sutton Credit Union can do, but it explains why the sector looks different in different parts of the UK.