THE BLACK church has long played an important role in black communities. 

Despite the hardships that the Windrush Generation encountered as they adjusted to life in Britain, many found a sense of community and comfort in the church. 

But the role of the black church in helping create economic mobility and generational wealth has largely been overlooked. 

Church members would pool their resources to form pardner schemes or credit unions – a cooperative that acts like a banking service.

The success of these organisations meant that congregants bypassed the discrimination of mainstream banks while buying property or being able to afford to send for their children in the Caribbean, or launch a business.

The global protests that followed the death of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked an intense national debate, both here and in the UK, about the links between economic and racial inequality.

Mirroring what was happening in the US, individuals and community groups in the UK backed up their words with action by moving their money away from banks and into organisations such as the Pentecostal Credit Union (PCU) – the UK’s largest  black-led credit union – as part of a powerful display of economic solidarity.

“We certainly experienced a spike of new customers in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder” says PCU’s CEO Shane Bowes.

“This has coincided with recent reports over the last year or so that loan applications from black small businesses are more likely to be turned down to mainstream banks than businesses run by people of other ethnicities.  

“These negative outcomes, in addition to the issues that came out of the George Floyd protests, have increased the number of people taking their money out of banks or coming to us as their first port of call.”

The trend also reflected a growing debate about how best the black community could achieve generational wealth. 

According to a December 2020 report by think tank Resolution Foundation people of African Caribbean heritage typically hold the lowest wealth (a median figure of £24,000 family wealth per adult), which amounts to less than one eighth of the typical wealth held by a person of White British ethnicity (£197,000 family wealth per adult). 

The goal of improving the bleak outlook painted by these statistics recently led the PCU to launch a new drive aimed at Millennials.

GiftBox! is a suite of financial services aimed at helping young people make long-term choices about their personal finances that will ultimately help them achieve goals such as getting out of debt, creating wealth, or becoming entrepreneurs 

As well as offering competitive loans and high-interest savings accounts to members, who do not have to be Pentecostal churchgoers, GiftBox! will run Money Masterclasses aimed at improving members’ financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills. 

Although the PCU’s story is unique it will sound familiar to many black Britons.

It was founded in 1980 by Rev Carmel Jones, a minister in the Church of God in Christ. He wanted to help black people, in particular members of the Windrush Generation, to bypass discrimination they faced from mainstream financial institutions when trying to obtain funding for projects such as launching businesses or building new churches.

The fact that the credit union had members who knew each other and felt morally obliged to repay loans because of this helped the organisation to grow quickly. 

The credit union model also allowed members to save and lend money in a way that kept it circulating within the community, rather than enriching a few wealthy shareholders at the expense of others.

Today the PCU has assets of £13 million and is part of a growing sector.

According to Bank of England’s data released early last year 1.93 million people in the UK are now members of a credit union, an increase of more than 22,000 compared to the same period in 2021. 

Bowes says supporting aspiring business owners is vital to the long-term economic welfare of the community. 

“Anywhere you go in the world you’ll see a community like a Little China or a Little India for example,” he says. 

“And within those communities you’ll see a bedrock of entrepreneurship. You’ll see shops, you’ll see businesses, you’ll see a hotbed of activity. That community is being driven and financed by its entrepreneurial spirit. So we believe that in order to drive forward the economic empowerment of our community, entrepreneurship is really important.”

Mark McIver, owner of barbershop business Slider Cuts, says the backing he received from PCU was crucial to helping his business get off the ground. 

“When I started my business I was struggling to find funding and get loans from places because they felt I had maxed out on my credit” he recalls. 

“PCU looked at me, looked at my situation. They had a conversation with me instead of what the mainstream banks did when I approached them, which was to rely on a computer to make a decision and then ultimately say no.”

Recent years have seen criticisms levelled at black churches both here and in the US over a growing embrace of what has been called ‘prosperity gospel’.

Unlike the focus on social justice and tackling discrimination that marked black church leadership in the 1950s and 60s, prosperity gospel followers believe God wills those who are “born again” to be materially wealthy and free of disease. 

Its popularity over the last two decades has seen the emergence of celebrity ministers who create wealthy megachurches and preach theology critics say supports a vision of capitalism that has been devastating to black communities. 

The view that organisations like PCU – and black churches in the UK –  reflect this theology is one that author and entrepreneur Jemma Regis rejects. 

Regis is the founder of Jemz Cake Box as well as two other businesses and, like McIver,  worked with the credit union to successfully launch her companies. 

“When my mum died in 1987, they were instrumental in my dad just holding on to the property our family had” she recalls. “When he couldn’t get support from anywhere else, they were there.

“They’re not driving around in massive jeeps or living in six-bedroom houses. They are very much community focused. They want to support the community and they have the heart to help people who really can’t get that support from elsewhere.”