Aims

The project's central aim is to explore the policy implications of the 2008 financial crisis’s impact on access to credit in the UK financial market. It seeks to bridge the gap between academia and practice, by translating academic work on how the crisis has affected availability of funding for individuals and businesses, into practical proposals focused on addressing legal and regulatory obstacles to credit availability, and dealing with the societal implications of debt.

Using scholarship on the legal nature and regulation of alternative forms of lending, we seek to formulate proposals will address practical and policy issues around financing small businesses, innovative credit and ethical finance, as well as resilience and sustainability in regional economies.

Our project, accordingly, has three key aims.

Firstly, we seek to create a platform and network through which policy makers, stakeholders and community based organisations can be brought together to inform a holistic response to the legal and social dimensions of the challenge of credit availability after the 2008 crisis.

Secondly, we aim to provide a critical evaluation of the legal framework governing the credit-offering structure, as it has developed in the UK market after the 2008 financial crisis. We seek to do this on an experiential basis, through engagement with primary stakeholders, and with specific reference to the effectiveness of the legal framework in providing access to finance for businesses and individuals.

Thirdly, we week to translate existing research on the societal impacts associated with the changes that the 2008 crisis brought to the structure of credit offerings and credit markets in the UK, into policy and practical proposals to ameliorate those impacts, through engagement with affected persons and third-sector organisations.