Shaking up financial services with our ‘For the Better’ award

We’ve recently announced our third partner in our ‘For the Better’ awards and this year will see us working with the Credit Unions of Wales, a really inspiring organisation whose aim is to increase workers’ financial wellbeing in Wales.

The pro bono work we undertake at Teamspirit as part of our ‘For the Better’ awards is something I’m immensely proud of and have been since we launched it three years ago. It aligns with our mission to transform the world of finance for the better, and means we can support organisations working hard to change the system and make financial services a meaningful and accessible reality for everyone in society. We want to champion new social enterprises or not-for-profit organisations that have the ambition to transform how we all think and feel about money, aren’t afraid to shake up the system and ultimately have a tangible impact on people’s lives every single day.

And we have done this really successfully over the last two years through our work with Vestpod and Fair Money Advice. Vestpod is a community, a digital platform specifically designed for women to help break the taboo around money and ensure we all have the knowledge and skills to make our money work hard for us, be that knowing where our pension savings go or how to start investing in the stock market. Fair Money Advice is a debt charity which is helping to remove the stigma around debt, change the narrative and get effective help to those who need it.  We’d also like to congratulate its Managing Director, Muna Yassin, MBE, who was recently recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021 for charitable Financial Services to Disadvantaged People during Covid-19, highlighting just how important the work Muna and her amazing team do.

We received an impressive range of entries this year from a diverse set of companies including banks and building societies right through to investment platforms and fintech start-ups looking to take on the challenge of climate change.

But, the Credit Unions of Wales stood out to us. A group of 10 credit unions working across Wales, the team are already having a big impact by offering people affordable credit from a trusted voice while helping to advance the financial resilience of many different communities across the country. Not a small task. But one that is life enhancing for the people who are supported by the work of our client, Claire Savage, and the working group she chairs.

We’ll be working with them to support the delivery of their new strategy – Building a Credit Union Nation. Specifically, we will be supporting the launch of a new service targeting workers across Wales called ‘Moneyworks Wales’. The aim is to raise awareness and increase membership of this new payroll deduction scheme, increase workers financial wellbeing, and help them to build a savings safety net for the future. After the impact of the pandemic this has never been more important.

We’ve committed £10,000 of communications expertise to support this project over the summer, and I know the team can’t wait to get started.