For many people, buying a home is the most expensive purchase of their lives, and it requires a mortgage from the bank. But slum dwellers do not have access to formal credit for homes or home improvement. The Slum Upgrading Facility (SUF) Pilot Programme is designed to assist low income groups to mobilize formal credit for this purpose. The following article simplifies the somewhat complicated 'architecture' used to make this happen. The stories from country projects in the newsletter touch on another complex issue: land. At the local level, solutions to land problems will vary,as will national land management policies across countries. Wherever and whenever informal settlements make attempts to formalize, land issues will arise. A SUF Working Paper on land issues in the SUF Pilot Countries is currently under preparation to help our understanding of how some of these problems can be dealt with.