You can pay standing orders, wages, tax credits, benefits or similar into your credit union account and use it to load up your Credit Union Visa Card. You can use your Credit Union Visa Card for local and online shopping, but you can only spend what you put on the card.

You choose how to spend or save your money:

• John chooses to pay in £320 per month into the credit union;
  £50 per week gets loaded onto his Credit Union Visa Card to spend,
  £20 per week stays in his account ready to cover bills,
  £10 per week goes into his Lock It Away Xmas savers account, to be withdrawn in November.
• Joao pays all his wages from his employer into his credit union account
  He keeps £30 per week in his savings account ready for bills. The rest gets loaded onto his Credit Union Visa Card.
• Gemma gets her £30 per week Education Maintenance Allowance paid into the credit union, she keeps £5 per week in her savings account, the rest gets loaded onto her Credit Union Visa Card to spend on online shopping, local shopping and for cash-back.
• Julie gets her wages from her part time job paid into the credit union; she loads half of it onto her Credit Union Visa Card, and spends it on online shopping.

Going abroad? Load up your Credit Union Visa Card with more money and use overseas ATMs to get your cash or use in stores wherever you see the Vissa acceptance mark displayed.

Members of ISCU credit union are pre-approved to get the Credit Union Visa Card (providing you supplied us with sufficient address and identification documentation when you joined).

The examples on this page are fictional, although based on the real circumstances of many credit union members.

Ipswich & Suffolk Credit Union Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, (www.fsa.gov.uk/register/) and is entered in the Financial Services Authority Register under Registration No. 213756.

Registered Office: 63 Austin Street, Ipswich, IP2 8DF (www.iscu.org.uk)