WHEN Angela Chittock needed to help pay for her son's wedding she avoided borrowing money from high street banks.
Instead the 67-year-old from Kelvedon turned to a not-for-profit credit union, which offers members safe, low-interest loans, to support her son Stuart, 31, from Colchester.
She is just one of 1,200 savers to borrow from Holdfast, a Witham-based credit union with collection points in Braintree, Chelmsford and Kelvedon.
The idea is that members borrow small sums of money, at interest rates as low as two per cent a month, against their savings.
When a member first joins Holdfast they can borrow double their savings and the next year they are allowed to borrow three times the amount in their account.
Ms Chittock said: "They came to our local church and that's where I pay in my savings.
"I don't think many people know about it but if you want a loan you start off with a low amount and then the next loan you get a bit more.
"My son got married last year and some of what I have saved went to help pay towards his wedding.
"At the moment I have a loan so I have to pay that off each week.
"I only found out about it because a friend was already in it. I still do normal banking but this is just for savings."
The union currently holds £550,000 worth of savings and typical loans range from £50 to £500.
Graham Dennison, chairman of Holdfast, which is run by 28 volunteers and three part-time staff, said: "It's for all types of people but generally we aim for people who would not be able to get a loan anywhere else.
"There's so many loan sharks out there and so many people who have no credit rating or a very checkered credit rating.
"But we don't care about credit rating – savers can build up a credit rating with us. We make sure they don't over exert themselves and think ahead."
Essex County Council is currently promoting credit unions and recently granted £70,000 to Credit Unions Together, a group of four credit unions covering the whole county.
Barbara Donovan, a 66-year-old from Witham, has used Holdfast for seven years, which has enabled her to buy kitchen appliances and a computer, as well as pay for costly dental work with credit union loans.
She said: "I saw it as a means of saving money. Once you've saved money you can borrow against it and each week you pay back a relatively small amount.
"There's a lot of people who run through loan sharks when they have no money because they can't go to the bank because of a poor financial record. But there's no danger of that here – this is a savings bank."
