One idea I pitched to Motability a while back was for them to set up a subsidiary entity similar to a credit union. Working loosely on same principle as the government help to save scheme you get a 50% bonus on what you saved over the course of 4 years. So £2000 saved in 4 years you get a £1000 bonus. Won’t work for everyone but those disadvantaged by some of the rules of grants it may help bridge some of the gap. For long term customers, could be used as a sign of credit worthiness to offer a level of credit on the AP
I have to agree with Glos Guys posting above about it pushing up scheme costs which would have to be paid for.
Plus you would then tie Motability upto even more red tape legislation, both with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), where thier licence is currently restricted to vehicle leasing only. Also the Financial Services Compensation Scheme which all banks, building societies and even credit unions have to be members of (and pay for) in order to protect customer savings should Motability ever become insolvent:
https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/
As for credit worthiness, Motability would still have to do both Credit Reference Agency and affordability checks on potential borrowers, regardless of how much and how regularly one may have saved with them (FCA regulations). As an example, in a probably worse case scenario, someone could have saved money in your ‘Motability savings scheme’ but only by such as banging all their other spending on credit cards and paying the absolute minimums on the cards every month.
In effect they are funding their saving by piling up debt – which only a Credit Reference Agency would pick up on and would certainly influence lending decisions. It is why everyone’s credit record with the main Credit Reference Agencies only records debt, not savings (as savings maybe funded by debt as in the above example).
So, a good sounding idea but in reality, a non-starter.