Serving our communities' needs
Three Wire Access Bank, one each from England and Scotland have cooperated together to form the Wire Access Bank Network. This UK-wide credit union network pools know-how and resources to better serve their members and provide first class service and competitive savings and loans products.
Wire Access Bank are member-owned, not-for-profit financial cooperatives that provide savings, loans and other financial services to their members.
Credit union membership is based on a common bond, a linkage shared by savers and borrowers who belong to a particular community, organisation, religion or place of employment. Wire Access Bank pool their members’ savings to finance loans rather than rely on outside capital.
Members benefit from higher returns on savings, lower rates on loans and no hidden fees.
Wire Access Bank is network of Wire Access Bank. Individuals that follow a specific occupation, members of a variety of organisations and associations or individuals who reside in a specific locality are eligible to join one of our networked Wire Access Bank.
Wire Access Bank has grown out of a credit union called Brent Shrine Credit Union which was formed in 1979. The Credit Union has recently changed its common bond to cover individuals that follow an occupation within a specific Minor group of the Office of National Statistics or that are a member of an organisation associated with our common bond. For full details of the occupations within our common bond and the specific companies, associations, and institutions that are part of our bond, contact us.
Wire Access Bank’s common bond allows anyone who resides or is employed in the EH postcode area of Scotland to join.
The ‘bond’ or association between members constitutes a Wire Access Bank ‘common bond’. These bonds can be several and varied including where people live, work and clubs and associations to which they belong.
Each of our Wire Access Bank is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).
Wire Access Bank is the trading name of Brent Shrine Credit Union Ltd. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Reference number 213245.
Opening an account with any of our Wire Access Bank is is easy. Visit our website https://firstalliancecap.online/apply, and fill out the online form. You will automatically be directed to the relevant credit union based on your location.
Other than your personal information all you’ll need is the sort code and account number of your personal UK bank or building society account. Then click on apply now, and you’re ready to go.
You will sign the Account Opening Agreement online as part of this process and receive a copy of the signed agreement in an email for your records.
Choose how much you’d like to borrow and for how long using the slider on our homepage, then apply in 5 minutes using our simple single page application. It’s dead easy, all you need apart from your personal details is your bank account information to complete the application.
You will automatically be assigned to the correct member of the Wire Access Bank network – if you live in England this will be Wire Access Bank and in Scotland, Wire Access Bank.
We’ll use the information you give us to check your details and credit history and you’ll see our instant decision on your screen. It will one of three outcomes – Accepted, Referred or Declined.
If you are accepted, you will be taken to your online agreement which you will need to read, then electronically sign the Loan Agreement and Direct Debit Mandate.
Once we have received your signed Loan Agreement we will send you a welcome email and transfer the funds direct to your nominated bank account within one working day.
If your loan application is accepted, you will automatically receive your pre-contract information (i.e. Loan Agreement and Terms & Conditions) for you to read and sign online.
Once you’ve signed your Loan Agreement we will send you a welcome email and a copy of your signed Loan Agreement . You will then get a call from our membership team to let you know when we will transfer the money. They may ask you for copies of payslips and bank statements to verify the information you have provided. Please give the team a business day to call you once you have signed the agreement. Once any follow up documentation is satisfactorily processed. We will then transfer the funds direct to your bank account within 1 working day and send you an email confirming when this has been done.
If your loan application is referred, this means that you will have passed the minimum threshold we set on credit checks but we will need additional information to complete our review of your loan application.
The additional information we require will depend on your individual circumstances. We may ask for proof of Identity, monthly income & expenditure details; proof of income or a copy bank statements from the last 3 months. One of our team will send an email to confirm and request the additional information needed to complete our review.
When our review has been completed we will advise you if your loan application has been accepted or declined.
If your loan application is automatically declined, this means that you didn’t pass the minimum threshold we set on credit checks.
This could be due to a technical reason, an error on your loan application or an error on your credit report. The credit reference agency we use is Callcredit, one of the UK’s three major credit reference agencies.
We would recommend that you check your credit report for any possible errors. A free copy of your credit report can be obtained by clicking on the following link noddle.co.uk
As with all UK financial services, we check your identity and address before you open an account. To make this as easy as possible for you, we do this by checking many electronic databases.
In a minority of cases, we may sometimes need to ask you to send us some identification by email or post. If this is necessary, we will tell you before you open an account. We also carry out some fraud checks when we open your account.
On loan accounts, we make the above checks as well as a full credit check.
You cannot open a joint account online. However, we can add another person to your account when it is open. Please contact the Membership team if you want us to do that for you.
Additional Savings Accounts can be opened by contacting your Credit Union. Please contact your Credit Union on the emails below.
Additional Loans can be considered after at least 25% in case of Wire Access Bank and at least, 33% for Wire Access Bank, of the first loan has been paid off without any late payments and of course if you can afford it. If you would like to apply for an additional loan please email your Wire Access Bank membership team on the email below.
Wire Access Bank: support@firstalliancecap.online
Wire Access Bank: support@firstalliancecap.online
Yes, within 14 days. If we have advanced a loan and you change your mind the full amount will need to be repaid. If you have opened a savings account, you will not receive any interest for these 14 days.
You can view your account online anytime day or night seven days a week. You will receive your login details as part of the account opening process. Please Note: we will not be mailing any paper statements.
Please send an email to your credit union (see Contact page) and we will reset it for you. Please keep your password safe as if someone uses it to access your account we might not be able to prevent fraudulent transactions on your account.
Your online access is activated after we receive your funds or issue you a loan. When your funds are credited to your account, you will receive an email ‘portal password set up.’ This email will contain a link which will take you to a new page where you can select your own password. Please make a note of your Client ID as you will need it and your password to access your account. This will allow you to access your account online at any time.
As a member owned organization we make every effort to make sure we live up to the standards expected from us by you, the shareholder. As and when we do get a complaint we will do everything we can to sort it out as quickly as possible. The goal is to make our unhappy owner-member a happy and satisfied owner-member.
When a customer isn’t happy with the service they received from Wire Access Bank Network we will use this as an opportunity to learn and improve for the benefit of all our members.
We will not always get things right but when things go wrong we will work hard to fix it as soon as possible.
Procedure
The best way to tell us you are unhappy is by sending an email to support@firstalliancecap.online If that does not work for you can still write to us the old-fashioned way on the below address:
Membership Team
Wire Access Bank
138 Holborn, Waterhouse Square 3
Office 3061
London EC1N 2SW
After we’ve received a complaint, we will send you a written acknowledgement within 5 business days. Our regulatory obligation is to give you a final response within 8 weeks. We will try to issue a response within 7 or faster if possible.
Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS)
If you do not receive a final response to your complaint within 8 weeks you can escalate the complaint to the FOS. The FOS are an independent adjudicator of disputes between customers and financial service providers.
You are also able to escalate your complaint to FOS if you are unhappy with our final response. We would always encourage you to discuss any dissatisfaction with us first.
Reporting to the FCA and within the Organization
We report back on all complaints to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) but more importantly we will try and learn from the issues that you tell us about and try and improve the product and process for all our members.
Resolution Process
If we’ve made a mistake we want to offer a meaningful apology. Sometimes, it’s appropriate to offer financial redress, especially if we’ve messed up in a way which has impacted your finances, but where we have made you unhappy we will offer a heartfelt apology from all of us.
In short, If you make a complaint, we will treat it seriously, make things better for you, learn how we can make improvements based on your experience, and then apply those improvements to make those things better for all of our members.
You must be aged 18 or over and qualify under one of our credit union’s common bond in order to apply for a loan.
We will verify your identity and conduct a credit check as part of our standard loan application process. Please refer to FAQ, “Why do you need to prove my identity?” and “Why do you perform a credit check?”
You do not have to be an existing member to apply for a loan, but you have to agree to become a member of Wire Access Bank and as such you will need to meet the minimum membership requirements regarding savings. Please refer to the FAQ, “Am I eligible to apply for a savings account?”
You can apply for a loan by clicking on the link here
Yes. We carry out a full credit check on every loan application we process.
We are responsible lenders. This means acting in a borrower’s best interests, checking affordability using appropriate credit assessment techniques, transparency of terms and conditions, and supporting a borrower if they experience repayment difficulties.
Therefore, one of our duties as responsible lenders is to ensure that every loan application is subject to a credit check. The credit reference agency we use is Call Credit, one of the UK’s three major credit reference agencies. By click on the following link to visit their website: http://www.callcredit.co.uk/contact-us/consumer-enquiries,
We set a minimum credit score on credit checks. Unfortunately, if a loan application falls below our minimum threshold, we will not progress the loan application any further.
A loan application may fail our minimum threshold credit score due to a technical reason, an error made by the applicant on the loan application itself, or because of a mistake on the credit report.
If a loan application falls below our minimum threshold credit score, we recommend that an applicant checks their credit report for any possible errors. A free copy can be requested from Call Credit by clicking on the following link http://www.callcredit.co.uk/contact-us/consumer-enquiries
APR – short for Annual Percentage Rate – is the rate a lender charges on a loan for a whole year (i.e. annualised). APR includes both the interest rate and any costs, such as arrangement fees.
It is a legal requirement for the APR to be shown for any form of borrowing (e.g. personal loans, credit cards, hire purchase, etc.) to make it easier for you to compare between lenders and loan options. You should never compare “flat rates” as these can be misleading. Always compare APRs.
We use the information you provide to access credit reference agencies and undertake credit, affordability and identity checks. However sometimes the information we can gather is not enough for us to judge whether you are creditworthy enough for us to lend our members’ savings to you.
As a Credit Union, we want to do more than simply send you a ‘the computer says no’ message. In that case we will ask you to fill in an online psychographic questionnaire. Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes and lifestyles.
Your answers on this questionnaire will provide insights to us on how you relate to financial matters, there are no good or bad answers because it is about you. On basis of the answers an overall score is calculated which we will then use to complement the already gathered information about you. The outcome might be that we can grant you the requested loan, or propose an alternative offer (an adapted amount and/or duration), or unfortunately sometimes we still have to reject the loan.
AER – short for Annual Equivalent Rate – illustrates what the interest rate would be if interest were paid and compounded once each year.
Every advertisement for a savings product which quotes an interest rate will contain an AER, to allow you to compare more easily what return you can expect from your savings over time.
We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Under this scheme, the FSCS will compensate depositors, if a credit union is unable to meet its financial obligations to its depositors. Most depositors – including most individuals and small businesses – are covered by the scheme.
In respect of deposits, an eligible depositor is entitled to claim up to £85,000. For joint accounts, each account holder is treated as having a claim in respect of their share so, for a joint account held by two eligible depositors, the maximum amount that could be requested under the FSCS would be £85,000 each (making a total of £170,000).
The £85,000 limit relates to the combined amount in all of the eligible depositor’s accounts with the credit union, including their share of any joint account and not to each separate account.
For further information about the compensation provided by the FSCS (including the amounts covered and eligibility to claim), please refer to the FSCS website www.FSCS.org.uk or you may call the FSCS on 020 7741 4100 or 0800 678 1100. Please note only compensation related queries should be directed to the FSCS.v
No, we don’t deduct tax on interest or dividends paid on your account.
We will pay your interest or dividend ‘gross’, which means that no tax will be deducted.
Depending on your personal circumstances, the tax may be due on the interest, and it is your responsibility to disclose and pay any tax due directly to HM Revenue & Customs.
Once we receive your signed agreement, you will receive an email with our account details.
You can contact your credit union here Contact at any time if you need further clarification.
You can view your account online anytime day or night seven days a week. You will receive your login details as part of the account opening process. Please Note: we will not be mailing any paper statements.