Unity Trust Bank and CorporatePay announce a partnership to deliver Financial Inclusion card accounts to Credit Union members

Unity Trust Bank is delighted to announce that it plans to launch the Unity Trust Bank prepaid MasterCard® for Credit Union members this summer.

(allCUnews) - Unity Trust Bank is the UK’s leading provider of banking services to the social economy sector; including charities, trade unions, social enterprises, voluntary organisations and credit unions in its customer base; and the first bank in the UK to remove all penalty charges and penalty interest on unauthorised overdrafts.

Kevin Turmore, Managing Director of Unity, said:

“Our customers have told us that they need a card that can give their members access to basic banking services; and the trial exercise we conducted during 2008 clearly confirmed this.

As a bank that is committed to enabling social development, financial inclusion is high on our agenda, and we are very pleased to be taking this step for our customers.

We wanted to work with a partner who could show scale, commitment and a similar approach to our own; and we are very pleased to be working with CorporatePay.”

Myles Stephenson, CEO of CorporatePay, said:

“Some Credit Union members don’t have bank accounts and are paid wages or advanced funds by cheque. Often their only resort is to take these cheques to be cashed, and to pay the associated charges.

With this new programme they will be able to have funds advanced directly to the card, which they can then use to make purchases in stores or on-line, or to withdraw the cash from an ATM.

Unity Trust Bank provides banking services for over 300 Credit Unions; which is testimony to their focus on social responsibility and their commitment to customer service. Their strength in this market and their friendly and constructive approach cause us to be genuinely excited about this partnership.”

Colin Greaves, Operations Director, Newcastle Building Society, said:

“Unity’s customers will have access, many for the first time, to a payment card that the majority of us take for granted.

Credit Unions will be able to reduce the costs of administration, cash handling and insurance; and the risk associated with processing cash.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

About Unity Trust Bank

Unity Trust Bank (“Unity”) is the leading provider of banking services to the social economy and to small and medium sized enterprises.

Unity was established in 1984. The organisation has a deserved reputation for its knowledge of the particular requirements of its clients and the delivery of a first class portfolio of services.

Unity has an impressive track record of working in partnership with many organisations that campaign for progressive social change and develop new and innovative ways of improving civil society. It also works in partnership with statutory bodies.

Some of Unity’s key achievements include:
• We are rated best for customer service. We topped the Customer Service Satisfaction ratings in Charity Finance Magazine’s annual survey of banking services in 2005, 2006, 2007 and in 2008, ahead of all other mainstream banks.
• We launched the £50m Social Economy Fund in November 2007 to meet the growing demand that we were experiencing for access to loan finance to support the increasing working capital requirements of charities, voluntary organisations, social enterprises and other social purpose bodies.

For further information, please visit: www.unity.co.uk

About CorporatePay

CorporatePay delivers market leading corporate and consumer prepaid card programmes, with a focus on the public sector and international foreign exchange solutions.

CorporatePay provides its clients fully managed prepaid card solutions including programme design (pricing, parameters, user functionality and scheme approval), account opening (online application process, payment processing, customer due diligence checks and card fulfilment), funding services (online via debit and credit cards, third party cash load networks, and foreign currency conversion), fraud management (account opening, payments for loading and card usage), card processing (balance management, authorisation, and restricted acceptance), card production (manufacturing, personalisation and distribution) customer service (web, mobile handset, IVR, and contact centre), and management information for corporate clients, partners and resellers.

CorporatePay’s sponsoring issuing bank in the UK is Newcastle Building Society. CorporatePay is a MasterCard Member Service Provider (MSP) and is registered as an Independent Sales Organisation (ISO) and Third Party Processor (TPP).

For further information, please visit: www.corporatepay.co.uk or contact Liz Blakeborough on 01179 924 0868 or mobile 07813 089 347 or Rebecca Yirrell on 07799 410 401.

About Newcastle Building Society

Newcastle Building Society is the biggest building society based in the North East and one of the strongest mutual building societies in the country. With assets under management of over £4.8bn we are certainly large enough to cope but small enough to care deeply about the needs of our members. We are committed to providing a range of innovative and attractive investment products.

The Society is committed to remaining mutual and by doing so we feel we are better placed to continue to provide our investors with the quality of service expected from one of the country’s strongest building societies.

Newcastle Building Society has over 160 live and a further 10 planned in this quarter, prepaid and debit card programmes including:
• Debit cards.
• Retail gift cards – replacement of paper gift token.
• Mobile phone cards – combined top-ups and payments cards.
• Teen cards – 13-plus age introduced to card holding.
• Un-banked adults cards.
• Travel cards – Safe convenient alternative to travellers cheques.
• Corporate incentive cards – cards issued direct to employees as reward payments.
• Payroll and Payroll Plus cards – salary payments for employees.

The Society is a MasterCard Principal Member, with the most MasterCard approved prepaid programmes in the UK. We hold a SEPA licence and have live programmes in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Italy.

For further information, please visit: www.nssl.info or www.newcastle.co.uk