Loans Officer (Frome)

As a member of the credit union's loan committee, you will assess members' applications and budgets to ensure that the loans issued are affordable. You will also follow up to ensure that members make the agreed repayments and help find a way forward to those facing financial difficulty.

You don't need any special accounting or banking know-how and calculations are carried out using a tailored package, but you will need to be confident with figures. You will also need to have excellent interpersonal skills - members applying for loans or needing to renegotiate payments are often stressed or anxious.

You will communicate with members by email, phone and text and collaborate with other members of our loan committee by phone and online meetings. Full training and mentoring is provided.

This is an opportunity to work from home (we say it's a job you can do in your pajamas!) to reinforce our support for members - tackling financial inclusion, reducing use of much more expensive lenders and even vulnerability to loan sharks. Frome-based members constitute the largest group within our credit union, and we'd like to boost Frome's representation amongst our volunteers.

Join us. Share the satisfaction.

We make a difference: one of our volunteers said: “It’s a real privilege to be part of someone’s saving milestones – the first £50, £100, or even £1000 as they build their rainy-day fund or save for something special. But I just don’t have words to describe the boost I got from seeing someone who started with a crisis loan now borrowing for a planned trip ‘down under’ to see family for the first time in many years.”  

Sometimes we help in a crisis, for example: a distressed member needed a loan quickly to pay a vet up-front for their dog to be sedated and gashes caused by barbed wire stitched up. Volunteers rallied round to arrange a crisis loan and the injury was soon treated.

We help the local economy: members borrow for transport to get to work (from car repairs, to getting a motorcycle). And although we don’t give loans to businesses, we’ve helped many self-employed members with the costs of training, materials or tools.

MCCU's loan interest stays in the area, and in years where we have a surplus we share some of it amongst members as a dividend on savings and a rebate on interest paid. Contrast this with interest on credit cards or bank loans that leaves the area to pay corporate overheads or overseas shareholders' dividends.