<title/> The government has been actively encouraging the development of credit unions to help the financially excluded. However, rather than stimulating credit union development, government grants can erode the community self-help ethos on which credit unions are founded. Policies should be formulated...

As member-owned, not-for-profit financial institutions, credit unions are an important instrument of public policy, particularly in pushing forward measures to tackle financial and social exclusion. Historically, the credit union movement in Great Britain has been hampered by a number of...