Social enterprise funder Community Finance Ireland (CFI) is to collaborate with credit unions on a co-lending project to help enhance lending to charities and sporting groups.

The Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) has facilitated the relationship with CFI to provide an option for credit unions to bolster lending activities to local community organisations.

According to David Malone, chief executive of the ILCU, the credit union sector currently has €17m of community loans to over 500 different community organisations. He added community lending was only 0.4pc of total credit union lending, with the hope the collaboration will help credit unions diversify further into this space.

“The work done by these community organisations such as charities, sporting organisations and voluntary groups at local level is integral to developing vibrant and thriving communities,” he said. “CFI has already been working with a number of credit unions in co-funding appropriate community lending projects.

“Working with CFI, we will adopt a co-lending approach to assist in spreading the risk for larger loans where it may not have been possible to proceed with on a solo basis, and also leverage CFI’s significant expertise.”

Dónal Traynor, CEO of CFI, said engaging with the credit unions underpinned its ambitions to make a social impact across the island of Ireland.

Reporting: The Irish Independent