The city's credit union has had more than one new member joining every day this month, and say turmoil in the financial markets mean people are turning to safer saving alternatives.

Janice Taylor, office manager at Lincoln Credit Union, said; "We have had 22 members join this month already.

"We have had a lot of people paying off their loans and the not-so-well-off people taking loans.

"I am expecting far, far more people to join.

"We do not loan money to people unless they already have savings with us but there are a lot of people wanting loans from us who have not put in savings.

"If we tried to do that we would have a queue right up from our shop in the High Street to the Stonebow."

The credit union started in 2006 with 361 members but in recent weeks membership has jumped to 959.

The High Street-based credit union allows people who live or are employed within the city to join a savings and loan scheme.

Members are only allowed to take out a loan if they have been saving with the credit union for more than three months and loans have a maximum interest rate of 12.68 per cent APR.

They also visit schools in the Lincoln to teach children about the benefits of saving at an early age.

Mrs Taylor added the credit union would not be put in danger from the current financial turmoil.

"We operate entirely separately from the other financial institutions, although we are still regulated by the FSA," she said.

"Our members own the Lincoln Credit Union and we are as solid and dependable as they are."

Linda Burden, the Lincoln Credit Union's development officer, said: "Our members, many of whom run the operation as volunteers, own the union co-operatively and we are not part of any other business.

"We are local people pooling our resources.

"We work mostly with people excluded from mainstream finance, but increasingly we're seeing more comfortably-off people seeing the sense of saving with us and using our loan capacity as 'rainy-day' money."

Sue Hobbs (45), of Rookery Lane, Lincoln, has been saving with Lincoln Credit Union since it started.

"It is very handy and it is local so you can just put as much or little money in as you want," she said.

"I have used it for small loans. If you went to the bank you could not get a small loan if something like the washing machine blew up.

"All our money is also guaranteed if anything happened and we would get it back."

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