Unsurprisingly, being called ‘Fair for You’, we really care about fairness. We believe that people who are less well-off or whose financial circumstances are more difficult than most should not have to pay more for credit. By providing the services we do, the people who work at Fair for You are trying to help reverse the prejudices of our existing financial system. There are some core beliefs that we share which guide us in our work.
We have an overriding vision for our organisation – which is what we aim for with every customer every day of the week – and that is “to change lives through better lending.”
In order to achieve that, we have a mission statement – this summarises the main things we do to “change lives” - we believe our mission is “to make credit accessible to those who need it most: harnessing our deep understanding of people and their circumstances to lend responsibly and provide finance, goods and services.”
When we asked the people who work for Fair for You how they went about their work every day, there were five words that virtually everyone mentioned. We have called these our values.
1. Trust
We trust our colleagues to do the right thing for our customers just as our customers trust us to help them when life happens.
2. Partnership
We actively seek to work in partnership with our customers, with each other and with our retailers and commercial partners.
3. Fairness
We are an impartial organisation which treats everyone with fairness regardless of their financial situation. Similarly, we would never discriminate on the basis of people’s age, disability, gender/ gender reassignment, marriage/ civil partnership, pregnancy/ maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.
4. Integrity
We strive to demonstrate integrity in everything we do. Being a social lender requires strong ethical principles. We can be trusted to do the right thing for our customers.
5. Openness
We say what we do and do what we say, and we will always treat each other and our customers with honesty and openness.
Our values are important to us. They are actually the same as those of our owners, the Fair Credit Charity. The Charity oversees and supports Fair for You in its work as a lender to financially vulnerable people and families. The Charity also speaks out on the impact of high-cost lending to low-income households, and campaigns on the issues of poverty and the unfairness of the lending and credit system in the UK.
Fair for You is what is called a “Community Interest Company”. This is a special type of company which is created for a social purpose rather than to make a profit for owners or shareholders. We are a not-for-profit organisation and we exist for the benefit of the people we serve, our customers.
We are wholly owned by the Fair Credit Charity, but we are funded by some of the biggest social enterprises and charities in the UK. We are very grateful indeed for their ongoing support which allows us to carry out the work that we do.
Our investors include:
- Social Investment Scotland
- Fair4All Finance
- Barrow Cadbury Trust
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
- Big Issue Invest
- The Robertson Trust
- The Tudor Trust
- Carnegie UK
- Centrica Ignite
- Social Investment Business
- The FSE Group
- Key Fund
- Charities Aid Foundation
