Introduction

From mergers to hardware refreshes and new online services to current account offerings, North Midlands Credit Union have been extremely busy these last 12 months. Implementing these projects mean more choice and better services provided to their members.

Working alongside their IT Partner, Wellington IT, numerous projects have been successfully implemented to offer their members better services than ever before.

North Midlands Credit Union are also looking to the future, soon rolling out the new mobile app, cuMobile and evaluating Wellington IT’s Private Cloud offering.

Two mergers to offer members more services

A decision was voted upon last year for Castlepollard Credit Union and Longford Credit Union to perform a Transfer of Engagement with Mullingar. (Now North Midlands Credit Union)

Their mantra is “stronger together” and this transfer of engagement would enhance the services that all their members currently enjoyed. The combined Credit Union would also be better positioned to meet the ever-increasing regulatory requirements.

The first transfer of engagement took place in July 2019 between Mullingar and Castlepollard.

Merger project delivered successfully, on time and in budget

As part of the TOE, Wellington IT carried out hardware replacements for Castlepollard, to include new laptops, printers, firewalls and switches, to match the setup at Mullingar.

Castlepollard Credit Union had a different core system to Mullingar. Wellington IT worked hard to migrate all the data from Castlepollard’s old system into Scion, subsequently merging the data with Mullingar’s data.

In January 2020, another merger was completed between Longford (another Wellington customer) and Mullingar. This merger brought North Midlands Credit Union up to 50,000+ members and over €330 million in assets, making it one of the largest Credit Unions in the country.

The Boards of Directors of all Credit Unions are confident that the enlarged Credit Union will strengthen North Midlands Credit Union’s position as the most trusted, respected and preferred financial institution for all of their members.

North Midlands have saved 186 days in 2020 so far with their new ATM upgrade

Once the transfers of engagement were completed, newly expanded North Midlands Credit Union set out to refresh their hardware. All PCs were updated by Wellington IT from Windows 7 to Windows 10. This was around 60 PCs in total which took 5 days to complete from start to finish.

This also consisted of other infrastructure upgrades including firewalls and switches.

In December 2019, North Midlands Credit Union wanted to replace their standalone ATM that is located outside their Mullingar branch. Wellington IT worked with their ATM supplier to update the software and ensure every transaction linked back into Scion for real-time information.

This ATM upgrade has really proven itself beneficial, especially during the pandemic. In January to June 2020 alone, the ATM has performed over 32,000 transactions amounting to €4.8 million! When an average counter withdrawal takes approximately 3 minutes, the ATM has saved North Midlands Credit Union 186 working days from January – June 2020. And what’s better, the ATM is operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

Tom Allen says “I’m delighted with the ATM upgrade and the job Wellington did. They had to liaise closely with the ATM supplier and ensure the hardware was compatible with their software and could integrate with Scion seamlessly. I’m relieved that this upgrade was done before Covid-19 hit. It’s particularly proved itself during this time. Even though we’ve stayed open during the pandemic, some members didn’t feel comfortable coming into branch and instead use the ATM that’s just outside the office. From January – June 2020, the ATM has seen over 32,000 transactions amounting to almost €4.8million”.

More online services for members

North Midlands Credit Union recognised that in today’s world, that although members very much appreciate the personal service offered by the Credit Union, they also want the convenience of being able to transact online.

Last year, North Midlands Credit Union updated their online offering to cuOnline+ which has Strong Customer Authentication and is PSD2 compliant.

With cuOnline+ North Midlands Credit Union members can perform all transactions online easily with no fuss, and even receive documents such as Credit Agreements straight to their laptop or smartphone.

Offering members current accounts

North Midlands Credit Union was one of the first 16 Credit Unions in Ireland to offer a full current account to their members. This includes a current account, debit card that can be used globally and overdraft facilities.

Along with Payac, Wellington IT hosted a number of workshops focussed around the current account offering, and how we were updating the development of Scion to ensure all elements were integrated successfully.

In their last annual report, Paul Isdell, Chairperson of North Midlands Credit Union

“I am delighted to see the rollout of our Current Account and Debit Card. This is truly groundbreaking and it puts the Credit Union on a level playing field with the pillar banks for personal day-to-day banking. The Debit Card is issued by Mastercard, giving payment access to a vast array of enterprises both in the real world and online”.

Committed IT Support

Wellington IT set up VPN facilities for North Midlands Credit Union to allow for remote working during the pandemic. Over 150 secure VPN certificates were put in place for Wellington IT’s customers to ensure the security of the connection.

When North Midlands Credit Union brought on Longford, they were added to North Midland’s MPLS Wan (wide area network) to ensure connectivity and speed between sites was at its optimal. MPLS provides a more stable and reliable connection with a greater depth of security.

What's next for North Midlands Credit Union?

North Midlands Credit Union are excited to roll out their new mobile app, cuMobile, to offer their members even more services and allow them to manage their finances on the go.

North Midlands Credit Union currently run 4 servers all of which will fall out of warranty within the next year.

North Midlands Credit Union are thinking about moving to Wellington IT’s new private cloud offering, which would see all Scion-related servers moved to their Datacentres. North Midlands Credit Union could reduce their foot print and reliance on local servers, meaning only local domain and windows servers remain.

About North Midlands Credit Union

North Midlands Credit Union have partnered with Wellington IT for the past 30 years, and have been integral in projects such as the initial launch of EFT services through BNP, National and standalone ATM, Payac and shaping our Product Roadmaps. Tom was instrumental in helping Wellington IT plan out their Revolving Credit offering, which will be available soon.

North Midlands Credit Union was founded in 1962 under the leadership of Father Finian O’Connor. From small beginnings it has grown to a position where it now plays a major role in the economic and social life of the towns and villages and local communities that make up its common bond.

North Midlands Credit Union is one of the largest community based credit unions in Ireland and pride themselves on excellent service to members.

Learn more about North Midlands Credit Union by visiting their website https://www.northmidlandscu.ie/.

Interested in finding out more about our Private Cloud offering?