Save and borrow with repayments from your pay

We're passionate about supporting #TeamSTSFT in all areas of health and wellbeing. Financial wellbeing is just as important as physical and mental wellbeing. With this in mind, we're pleased to have partnered with Serve and Protect Credit Union, to support us in improving the financial resilience of colleagues here at STSFT. Serve and Protect is on hand to help you save and there if you need to borrow throughout your career with STSFT.

Serve and Protect currently has over 40,000 members including NHS staff and their family members – helping them to save, but also there if they need to borrow. As a not-for-profit organisation, Serve and Protect is owned by and run for their members – offering an ethical alternative to other financial providers. Click here to watch a short video about Serve and Protect and the work they do.

Read below to find out how Serve and Protect recently helped a member of #TeamSTSFT...

serve and protect case study STSFT.PNG

Helping you save...
•    Join for free
•    Save a minimum of £10 per month (maximum £1,000 per month)
•    Repayments straight from your salary
•    Withdraw at any time – online or via the mobile app
•    1% dividend paid on savings (Financial year 2020-21)

Or if you need to borrow...
•    Affordable loans of up to £25,000
•    Repayments straight from your salary
•    No early repayment penalties
•    Interest calculated on the reducing balance
•    Life cover at no extra cost

Join today, learn more on the Serve and Protect website or watch the below videos to hear from Serve and Protect members:

Plus - the first 50 people to join will earn £25 into their credit union savings account*

(*provided you have a minimum balance of £25 after 3 months).

FAQs
  • What is a credit union?
    • A credit union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative, owned and run by it’s members, for it’s members. Similar to a commercial banks, credit unions provide access to savings and loans.
  • Who are Serve and Protect Credit Union?
    • Serve and Protect is a credit union that specifically serves employees across the Police, Prison & Probation, Armed Forces, Fire & Rescue Services, and the Health & Social Care sector.
  • How can I learn more and join Serve and Protect Credit Union?
    • You can learn more about and join Serve and Protect Credit Union via their tailored website for NHS employees - https://healthcu.co.uk
  • What savings return will I get?
    • You may receive a return on your savings in the form of an annual dividend. The annual dividend is based on the surplus profits of the credit union, and is proposed by the Board to the membership at their Annual General Meeting each year.

Further FAQs can be found here.

How to join
  1. Employees can learn more about Serve & Protect on their tailored website for NHS workers here. 
  2. Here, you can choose if you want to just open a savings account or would like to borrow as well. 
  3. If you wish to just save, click here. Or if you’d like to save and borrow, you can click here.
  4. Then, click 'Health CU' and select 'NHS Worker', which will take you to an application form to complete which only takes around five minutes.
  5. When asked for Region, select ‘North East and Yorkshire’ and then scroll down to 'South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Trust'.

Once you’ve successfully applied and joined, a deduction will come out of your pay each month and will appear on your payslip. You can access your savings using the mobile app - which you will be sent instructions to download once you’ve joined.

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