Salad saves UK workers £41m and reveals social and economic impact of transforming credit access
Our new impact report, published today and available below, demonstrates that Salad saved more than 90,000 UK workers £41 million pounds in interest during 2024-25.
Between September 2024 and 2025, Salad’s 90,000 customers saved an average of £454 each on an average loan of £1075, compared with other lenders available to and commonly used by applicants.
The report includes details of:
- how Salad is bridging the gap in access to fair credit
- our work with partners including NatWest, City Bridge Foundation, Ceniarth and Fair4All Finance, the not-for-profit financial inclusion organisation set up to increase the supply of fair and affordable credit for people in financially vulnerable circumstances
- how Salad, along with other community development finance institutions and advocates for fair consumer credit, has informed the development of the national financial inclusion strategy
- new innovations to support applicants – even if they are declined for credit – to improve their credit health, boost their financial standing and reduce the likelihood they will pursue a worse (high-cost or illegal) credit option
- how impact-driven investors are backing our “affordable lending bond” raises on Ethex
Rather than credit scores, Salad uses Open Banking and our own human- and machine-learning technology to make lending decisions, which addresses what the report calls “fundamental flaws in how the credit scoring system treats millions of people.”
Over 16 million people are "financially underserved” with £2 billion of unmet credit needs which it could be both responsible and commercially viable to serve, according to recent work by LEK research.
This shortfall in access to fair credit doesn’t only drive people towards extremely high-cost and illegal lending – bad enough outcomes alone – it also acts as a drag on economic productivity and effective participation in the workforce.
Tim Rooney, Salad CEO, says:
“Tackling the credit desert isn’t just about fairness and boosting financial wellbeing. Expanding access to affordable credit can support economic growth: by building more resilient communities, supporting productivity and participation in the economy, and saving interest which can be used to build savings and spent in local economies.
"We must expand access to fair credit and enable people for whom borrowing is impossible to rebuild their financial wellbeing, rather than write them off.”
The report is available here:
