BRADFORD District Credit Union is celebrating attracting 1,000 new members over the past year with continuing plans to expand its services to the wider community.

Since it opened a second city centre branch on Cheapside last October, to complement its original site at City Hall, the number of people using the service has risen from 3,800 to 4,800, a rise of 27 per cent.

The value of loans supplied by the union in the last year stood at £1.5million, and the growth of the union (BDCU) puts it in the top quarter of UK credit unions in terms of expansion over the past 12 months.

The union's chief executive officer, Andrew Bowker, admitted the not-for-profit organisation had grown quicker than he anticipated.

"I'm very proud of what we've achieved, but its because of the people who are using us," he said.

"A lot of credit unions are seeing a downturn, but we are moving forward.

"The key thing is to raise our profile, as it is still only a very small percentage of people who actually know what a credit union is.

"It's about expanding knowledge, and things are going well in Bradford as we are continually making people aware of what we do."

The Cheapside branch, which now handles around 43 per cent of the union's business, was handing out goodies to new customers yesterday to mark International Credit Union Day, which has been held to celebrate the work of credit unions across the world since 1948.

There are currently 57,000, serving 208 million people in 103 different countries, with 524 in the UK, sharing almost £1.5million members.

Financial inclusion development officer Dania Azadi said: "Before the Cheapside branch, we were opening on average 30 new accounts a month at City Hall, now we are up to around a hundred a month.

"We're right next to Forster Square station, which has linked us directly to places like Shipley and Keighley and really opened us up to the whole of the district."

The union has five information points and 14 collection points across the district, which have seen a 68 per cent increase in usage in the past year.

It re-vamped its website in July, allowing customers, which now include a range of nationalities such as Polish, Czech and Romanian, to access its services online.

"The whole ethos of a credit union is to educate people," said Mr Bowker.

"People think of credit and they think of a payday loan, but we are essentially a community bank.

"We're here to help people, not to make a profit.

"By educating and encouraging people to save, we believe that helps them move forward, and we want to offer that opportunity to the whole of the Bradford district."