Having a poor credit rating can have a massive negative impact upon a person’s life. The first side effect is bound to be that you can’t borrow money when you need it, but the problems go far beyond this. A poor credit rating could stop you being able to rent property, take out a contract on a mobile phone, agree a finance arrangement for a car and a huge number of other things which form a basic part of modern life.

The most unfair part of this is that it is extremely easy to damage your credit rating in the first place. A couple of weeks between jobs, a mix up with benefit payment, a couple of repayments missed, and the damage is done. Even a handful of payments which are slightly late because your wage didn’t quite stretch one month can damage your credit rating. Perhaps most unfairly, people who’ve decided to save up and buy things rather than taking out credit can find their credit rating damaged, just because they haven’t taken out credit.

One way to get round this situation is to join a credit union. A credit union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative which acts like the old-fashioned idea of a local bank or building society. It looks after its account holders money, it helps them to save and manage their funds and it offers loans for poor credit.

The key to a loan for poor credit given by a credit union is that the people at the credit union will deal with you like a human being, rather than a set of numbers. The staff at the credit union will look at what you can honestly afford to pay back and will agree or otherwise to a loan for poor credit on that basis. A credit union is part of the local community, rather than simply being a faceless corporation, and so they believe that lending people money they can genuinely afford to pay back will be good for everyone. The person involved will get the funds they need to help them over a temporary problem, while the community as a whole will benefit from one more person and family being able to keep their heads above water.

If you’ve been turned down for loans elsewhere due to a poor credit rating then a credit union could be the answer you’re looking for. Not only may they be willing to lend money to someone who has been told that they have a poor credit rating, but they will lend this money for a reasonable rate of interest. All too often, loans for poor credit take advantage of the people borrowing the money by charging extremely high interest rates, leading to people getting in more financial trouble by simply paying the money back. A credit union, which operates solely for the benefit of its account holders, charges a fair interest rate and sets repayments which it honestly thinks you can afford.

To put it simply, a credit union will be on your side, and will offer loans for poor credit based on what you need, rather than on what they can make out of you.  By borrowing what you can afford and repaying the loan you’ll also be taking the first step toward rebuilding your poor credit rating.