How is it different from saving with a bank? While we are fully online and mobile, we like to think that your savings are a little safer than any bank account savings which can be automatically transferred and spent before you know it – your credit union savings account is perfect for keeping your hard earned savings safe for when you really need them! (safe from you?!)

Credit Unions are built on the ethos of ‘people helping people’ so your savings could help fellow if they apply for a loan.

Unlike a bank, your savings will attract a dividend rather than interest. This dividend come from the interest members who borrow from us pay on their loans.

We offer a range of savings accounts and regularly launch special accounts for members to take advantage of better rates.

Sometimes we need a little help with our finances and a loan from Scotwest is fair and transparent. If you see one of our loans promoted on social media or advertised the rate you see is the rate all our members get (unlike banks we don’t have to prove that only 51% of applicants receive that rate in order to promote it – all of our Members get the same, and it’s very often if not usually less expensive)

We are fair and responsible lenders. Fair because we treat every application individually, we get to know our members and we do our best to help them when they need us. Responsible, because we don’t want to cause our members any financial stress (that’s opposite of why we’re here!) – if you come to us for a loan that you can’t afford we won’t give you that loan but we will do our best to help you find advice and assistance to improve your financial wellbeing.

We’re not here to do the hard sell on borrowing. Over a third of our members* have never borrowed from us but have saved with us for many years. But we think it’s important for people across Scotland like you to know that if you are looking to borrow, you might be surprised by how easy on your pocket it is with your credit union

*we have almost 40,000 of them across Scotland

When we talk about improving the financial wellbeing of our members we don’t only mean savings and loans – we try to give our members easy access to the best free and impartial advice.

We have worked with Money Helper to provide a variety of articles and information on a wide range of financial topics including tips on managing your budget and improving your credit score here to getting help if you are struggling with debt here.

There are links to Money Advice Scotland’s eLearning module, the Open University’s free online Money Managements courses and Comparethemarket’s Young Adult’s Guide to Credit here

You know by now that we care about the financial wellbeing of our members but we also care about our communities, local, national and global.

On a local level we give our Members the opportunity to help their own communities by nominating a local group or charity for a Community Award to fund work in their local area.

Thinking about our wider environment we look to encourage our members to be environmentally aware and thoughtful choices by providing greener products.  Find out more about how Our Purpose informs the way we do things here.