Congratulations to this year's LCU Tertiary Scholarship recipients (to be published shortly). For the first time ever, the awards will be presented alongside the 2019 CSIRO Alumni Scholarship at a special award ceremony hosted by CSIRO at Lindfield. All LCU members are welcome to attend. 

Read more: Scholarship Presentation and Award

Update from the GM

Welcome to the Summer edition of LCU’s Newsletter. We hope you had a very happy and relaxing Christmas/New Year break. I want to take this opportunity to update our members on an important change to LCU members’ usage of rediATMs.

Over the last 12 months there have been significant changes in the provision of ATMs in Australia. LCU members now have free access to over 10,000 ATMs Australia wide, including those operated by the “big 4” banks (Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac and NAB). Furthermore, a number of mutual financial institutions have already made the decision, or will in the near future, to leave the rediATM network. This trend is expected to continue as the network diminishes and access to these machines become more difficult.

For this reason, LCU has made the decision to leave the rediATM network. Effective from 20 March 2019, rediATMs will no longer be fee-free to use with an LCU VISA Debit card. Members who use a rediATM after this date may be charged a fee by the operator of the ATM. Over the coming months we will provide you with more information as the cut-off time approaches.

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge one of our dedicated staff members who retired during the year. Rhonda Hatton retired from her position as Loans Officer after 22 years of service to LCU and plans to relocate shortly to the NSW North Coast. From everyone at LCU we wish Rhonda and her husband Peter the very best for a happy and healthy retirement.

I would also like to introduce two new staff members. Theresa Luzon has been working at LCU since August as a Member Service Officer, and Tejas Daulat also started with LCU in late August as a Loans Officer.

By now many of you would be using the LCU - Banking App and I hope you are finding it to be convenient and user-friendly. Please contact any of the staff if you have any questions about the App, and we appreciate any feedback that our members would like to offer.

Finally I would like to mention the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking and Financial Services Industry. I, like most people, was appalled at the revelation (of which no credit union or mutual bank was involved), but our industry is focussed now on the recommendations that will come out of the Royal Commission and the implications for small financial institutions. Our industry association, the Customer Owned Banking Association or COBA, supports an approach to regulatory policy that aims to achieve regulation that is proportionate to the risk, size and complexity of the entity and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to regulation. In COBA’s submission to the Royal Commission, they made some very pertinent comments about the mutual sector:

• The culture of a banking institution is the most important factor driving consumer outcomes, in particular whether or not there is a culture of pursuing ever-increasing returns to shareholders;
• The core proposition of the customer-owned model is that each customer is an equal owner of the business and the business only exists to serve its customers; and
• Credit Unions, Mutual Banks and Building Societies have always existed to put people before profits – we are profit-making not profit-maximising.

LCU is a signatory to the Customer Owned Banking Code of Practice and this includes the following key promises:

1. We will be fair and ethical in our dealings with you

2. We will focus on our customers;

3. We will deliver high customer service and standards; and

4. We will recognise our customers’ rights as owners.

Leanne Harris

General Manager

LCU - Banking App (The Whole Story)

What started as a “quick project” has turned out to be one that went on for much longer than originally anticipated. That being said, looking out from this late stage and seeing a near finished product could not be more satisfying.

Who did we get to build it?

Our trusted provider Ultradata (UDA) – who manage our core banking platform and website were the obvious choice for the project back when we first began looking at it in 2017. Having the same company who currently manages our other online channels create our app just made sense. 

What was our focus?

 We wanted to keep it simple but ensure that we included as many of the features we knew were important to our members that we could.

Firstly, it was important to us that logging in to the app would be simple & straightforward.

That’s why, after entering your usual MVP credentials during the first time set up of the LCU – Banking App, you’ll be prompted to choose a PIN or pattern. Once that is set, there’s no need to change it unless you want to. For users sporting the latest iPhone (X and beyond) you’ll have a third option – FaceID. 

Of course we are very upset that this inevitable bit of favouritism occurred – we love our Android users equally after all and intend to support face recognition on android as soon as we are able to. Sadly that is reliant on our suppliers – and not something we can instigate ourselves. (I would if I could, I personally have an S8 and would love face recognition for myself!)

Card control  was another feature we wanted to ensure was included. You can now lock and unlock your LCU VISA card directly within the app. That means if you happen to misplace your wallet, instead of instantly calling VISA to cancel the card, only to find it five minutes later (safely tucked between the couch cushions) and then having to go through the whole replacement process anyway, you’ll now be able to lock your card with the tap of a finger.

You find the card – excellent! You tap Unlock and go on your merry way.

You don’t find the card, there’s a button right there in the app to tell us to place the order for your replacement card.

If you’re (again – the favouritism – I swear it isn’t me) an Apple Wallet user – make sure you’ve added your LCU card to your wallet. We are able to replace the details stored in the digital wallet on your phone – the same moment when the new card order is placed. Don’t wait on snail mail to start spending again! Instantly replace your card in the wallet instead.

So, why the long wait?

Some of you may recall, mentions of an app were being carefully doled out earlier this year – aiming for a mid-2018 release. But it wasn’t to be. It certainly adds a lot to the project of building a banking app when during the course of designing it, an entirely new method of payment is brought to market. Osko allows institutions to send funds, bank to bank, in moments as opposed to days. We wanted to ensure that our first app release would include the single biggest new function to hit the banking industry in the last few years. And so we decided to be patient and stay the course. Wait for quality and assurance testing to be completed, then finish designing, testing, and bringing this app to market.

What’s next?

Install of the app into our live banking environment was successfully completed on 29^th November. Then we entered our “soft launch” where the app is be available to staff members only whilst we complete the final testing with all connections live.

So when do I get it?

As the final, set-in-stone, we’re-definitely-going-to-release-it date – has not officially been confirmed as yet, I can’t answer that. Final release date is reliant on the results of the tests conducted during the soft launch. Fingers crossed we’ll have zero issues, everything will work perfectly first time and we’ll be able to inform you all that it’s to be released Mid-December.

Thank you so much for reading.  

Matthew Thoms
Marketing & IT Support