AN ENTREPRENEUR has created a 'unique social business model' which aims to provide loans and saving services to new start-up tech companies.

Blackburn-born Mo Isap, founder and CEO of IN4 Group, hopes that his new partnership with Salford Credit Union will help boost tech entrepreneurs who hope to follow in his footsteps and establish successful businesses across Bolton, the rest of Greater Manchester and the wider North West.

The partnership aims to do so by helping business founders from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds access funds at affordable rates, given that many start-ups and technology entrepreneurs struggle to secure credit from mainstream lenders.

Mr Isap said: "I am so proud to be partnering with Salford Credit Union to establish this unique social business model, which is unprecedented in a post-Covid world.

"People, place and culture are at the heart of everything we do, and this is how technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in a place needs to be supported."

He added: "We are nurturing entrepreneurs from the grassroots up and with the savers being able to invest in the future of the region, they have a real stake in its recovery from the pandemic.

"By supporting entrepreneurs to succeed, create new jobs and new opportunities for their local community, residents are providing valuable help towards building back better."

Credit unions differ from most lenders in that as well as lending money they aim to support and educate people including low-income families like single parents, or those who are financially vulnerable, by encouraging them to save what they can and only borrow what they can repay.

In this case, in order to access the loans, entrepreneurs will need to enrol on IN4 Group's business and innovation growth programmes, run from its MediaCityUK based innovation hub HOST.

These programmes will see new firms given mentoring and support on how to succeed in the tech industry by Mr Isap and his partners in order to help them generate further profits and secure investment to repay loans, lowering the risk for the credit union.

To find out more, go to: https://www.hostsalford.com/programmes/fund-your-tech/.