About Us

"Saving and borrowing together"

What is a Credit Union?

Credit Unions are a not-for-profit financial co-operative that is owned and controlled by its members. They can best be described as groups of people who save together and lend to each other at reasonable rates of interest, thus allowing each other the opportunity to gain greater control over their financial affairs. The primary driving force behind the movement is to offer non-exploitative, competitive financial services to individuals from all walks of life, regardless of their social status and economic background. Credit Unions have excellent track records of bringing widespread benefits for local communities, particularly helping those who are at most disadvantage.

This is very much reinforced by the concept of ‘self help’ i.e. all credit unions require their members to commit to saving on a regular basis to aid themselves in securing their own long term future.

A Worldwide Movement

Many people are not aware of credit unions and may be surprised to learn that there are hundreds of them in the United Kingdom alone. In other parts of the world including America, Canada, Australia, Ireland and Africa credit unions are often large organisations offering a wide range of services, competing with mainstream financial institutions. This competitiveness is achieved without compromising on the credit union ethos of equity, quality and self-help.

Worldwide there are currently around 54,000 credit unions in 97 countries serving more than 186 million people.

The Common Bond

A common bond is one of several things that make credit unions unique and different to other financial companies. It means that a credit union is able to offer our services to a specific group of people – and by doing this we get to tailor our services to our member’s needs much better than if we tried to serve everyone and anyone.

About Grampian Credit Union

Grampian Credit Union was established in 1993 for staff of the then Grampian Regional Council. A few years ago, we widened our common bond to include anyone living or working in the Grampian region – over 500,000 people are therefore eligible to join.

If you live or work in any part of Grampian, including the following towns, you can join us and we will help you to manage your money wisely:

Aberdeen                             Ballater                                         Banchory

Banff                                   Braemar                                        Elgin

Ellon                                    Forres                                           Fraserburgh

Huntly                                  Inverurie                                       Keith

Laurencekirk                         Peterhead                                     Montrose

Stonehaven

If you work for one of these employers you can make your savings and loan payments by direct deduction from your pay - a simple and painless way to benefit from Credit Union membership:

Aberdeen City Council                                                  Aberdeenshire Council

Moray Council                                                              Grampian Police

Grampian Fire and Rescue                                             NHS Grampian

Aberdeenshire Housing Partnership                                AACS

Grampian Joint Valuations and Assessors Board              S.C.A.R.F

Aberdeen CAB                                                             Aberdeen Cyrenians

Cornerstone Community Care                                       Aberdeen Foyer

Grampian Drugs Action

In April 2010, we had over 3,500 active adult members. In the year 2008-09 we made over 1100 loans totalling £1.3 million.

Grampian Credit Union is one of 450 Credit Unions in the United Kingdom, and is affiliated to the Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL).