FAQs
FAQs
A credit union is a financial co-operative owned and controlled by its members.
While credit unions offer some of the same services as high street banks, they operate a different business model with members electing the directors. All profits after reserves and running costs are met are paid back to members by way of an annual dividend.
Members can decide how little or how much they wish to save, and all are welcome to attend the AGM so they can have a say in how their credit union is run.
The loan products they offer are suited to members needs, with the focus being on the members ability to afford repayment.
You can save anything from £5 to £500 per month. Plus, an extra deposit of £5,00 in a 12-month period.
We'd love to have you as a member - You can join here.
The maximum savings you can hold per member if £85,000
Yes, you can do everything you need on our app here.
You can make a withdrawal via our app which you can download here or give the office a call on 01706 298 966.
Just message the team via the app and we’ll do the rest, or you can always give the office a call on 01706 298 966.
Yes, as a not-for-profit financial co-operative, we always aim to pay a healthy dividend on our members savings. All profits (after reserves and running costs are met) are paid back to our members by way of an annual dividend.
Savings in our Prize Link Savings account do not attract a dividend but are entered in a monthly draw with a £5,000 prize.
Yes, we are aware that sometimes members may want to transfer money to their family members, so there is the facility to have up to 4 bank accounts on your credit union account.
Yes, our savings are covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, meaning your savings are protected up to £85,000.
No, we’d love you to stay as a member with us. As long as you joined whilst working for one of our payroll partners, you can continue your membership with us and we’ll just amend your payment to a direct debit or standing order.
To do this, get in touch with the team.
Yes, the more the merrier! Family members who are living at the same address as the existing member can join. Even juniors under the age of 16 can join too.
Once your account has been opened and you’ve received your emailed welcome pack, you can apply for a loan via our app.
You can apply for a loan up to £20,000 T&Cs will apply.
All of our loans are based on affordability, so as a responsible lender, it is important that we ask you to confirm your income and expenditure to be able to do a full affordability check. For this reason, many loan applicants will require bank statements and wage slips to show these incoming and out goings.
Clear affordability checked ensure that we don’t take unnecessary risks with the credit union’s funds, and we don’t approve loans where we feel it will result in the member getting into financial difficulty. It also means that we can look beyond a members credit report to try to help them in every way we can.
It’s important that we do affordability checks on our loan applications. We use a lot of information to form this check, with one of the main sources being bank statements.
Open banking allows members to share their up-to-date bank statements with us rather than having to download or print them off themselves. Open banking also provides the credit union with the bank statements in a clear and concise format that the loans team are experienced in using, compared with the irregular format of paper statements across different banks which are much more time consuming to review.
We will only ask for the information we need, we can only access this information for a limited period and the transactions are limited to the most recent 3 months.
Please be aware that a member of the Metro Moneywise team will never ask you for your login details and banks will not issue bank statements to a company that is not officially authorised and regulated by the FCA (Finance Conduct Authority).
Find out more about open banking.
Yes, as part of our loan application process, we do carry out both soft and hard credit checks.
We want to make sure our loans are affordable and responsible, so we take a whole host of information into consideration when reviewing a loan application, a credit check being just one of them. Unlike other lenders, we don’t just base the decision purely on the credit check, we also think about your income and expenditure, the purpose of the loan and your account with us in general.
If you need any more information on the process, you can call our Loans team in the office on 01706 298 966 and we can talk you through the process.
Any loan with Metro Moneywise is the responsibility of the individual member. Although we may ask for information about a partner's income, this is solely to help ensure that the household income can afford the repayments. A member's partner is NOT liable for loan repayments.
Yes, in the event of a member’s death whilst running loan, loan repayments are covered by our free Life Assurance up to the age of 70 (some qualifying conditions will apply)
If your loan is declined, you have to wait a minimum of 3 months before re-applying.
There are no early repayments penalties on Metro Moneywise loans.
Yes, you just need to keep at least two loan repayments in, plus £5.
We credit your account with your payment once we’ve received them from your payroll department. As long as the deduction shows on your payslip, please be assured the funds will reach us and your account will be credited as there can sometimes be a delay.
First of all, your monthly payment is deposited into your Share 1 savings account. Then based on your loan repayment date stated on your loan agreement, the amount is transferred automatically to your loan account to make your monthly payment.
