Credit Union News

We are delighted to welcome Carli’s Kindergarten in Erskine as a new select employer.

All Carli’s staff can now benefit from Scotwest services with the added bonus of being able to pay into their credit union accounts straight from their wages each pay day.

Over 70 organisations now offer Scotwest as an employee benefit.  For more information on how this could work for your organisation, contact marketing@scotwest.co.uk or give Kim a call on 0845 634 7634.

2011 will see around 1500 competitors aged 12 to 15, along with their coaches and officials head to Lanarkshire for the 45th International Children’s Games.

Scotwest are delighted to have become an official supporter of the event which will take place from the 3rd to 7th August at various venues around Lanarkshire.

More information on the Games can be found at http://www.icg-lanarkshire2011.com/

One lucky Home Carer from Renfrewshire Council has just won £1000 in the August Scotwest Lottery draw.

Log in to see who all the lucky winners are...

Off on holiday?
Planning to use your Scotwest VISA Debit card while away?

Remember to contact the Member Enquiry Line on 0845 634 7634 before you go!

For security and to combat fraud, your VISA Debit card will be declined in a foreign country unless you have notified us in advance that you are going away.

Simply give us a call advising where you are going, when and how long for and we will organise for your card to be enabled for use while you are away.

Continued thanks to all members who have been online and opted out of paper statements to help us reduce the amount of paper we issue as an organisation. 

Your response to date has been incredible with over 8000 members opting out in time for the final of our three prize draws at the end of August.

Our final £50 winner is:

H Bruin from North Lanarkshire

For any members who have yet to choose their statement preference, you’ll be able to do so next time you log in.

Wednesday 7th July sees the launch of a new campaign encouraging consumers to stay on top of their finances so that they know their options and can plan ahead should interest rates, or their personal circumstances change. 

The campaign aims to show that spending as little as five minutes now could make a big difference later.

Consumers are advised to:

• Look out their mortgage paperwork
• Use the Moneymadeclear™ mortgage calculator to work out what a rise in interest rates would mean for their monthly payments
• Use the impartial online ’mortgage toolkit’ to help give their finances a health check so that they can understand their options and plan ahead. 5, 15 and 30 minute versions are available.

For more information look up www.moneymadeclear.org.uk/mortgages 

Terrific weather, a great crowd and above all a high standard of play and sporting behaviour sums up finals day at this year’s Scotwest Sevens football competition.

Congratulations to all of the teams who took part this year and especially to our winners:

Scotwest Sevens 2010      

Main event

Runners up: Our Lady of Lourdes Primary

Winners: Maxwellton Primary     

Girls event     

Runners up: Long Calderwood Primary

Winners: St Kenneth’s Primary

Well done to everyone involved.  We are already looking forward to the 2011 Scotwest Sevens!

Log in to the member section to set your preferences today!

With your help we can cut down on the amount of paper we issue and save some trees!

Congratulations to 14 year old Jack McComish from Lanark Amateur Swimming Club, winner of the Scotwest sponsored Junior Sports Performer of the Year award at the recent South Lanarkshire Disability Sports Awards.

Jack has enjoyed an outstanding year which included winning seven gold medals at the British Deaf Championships at junior level - setting four new British records and two Scottish records in the process.

A member of the Great Britain Deaf Team, Jack has been selected for the European Deaf Championships which will take place in Germany in June 2010.

Jack is pictured receiving his award from Scotwest Director, Gordon Ramsay.

Congratulations Jack from everyone at Scotwest! 

    We are looking for your feedback!

Log in to the member section to complete our new borrowing survey!

Credit Unions from around the world, including Scotwest are helping to make a real difference to the rebuilding of Haiti following January’s devastating earthquake.

Co-ordinated by the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), credit union donations are being used to help provide immediate relief to victims as well as financing the rebuilding of Haiti’s credit unions.

A WOCCU led delegation which included Marlene Shiels, the CEO from Capital Credit Union in Edinburgh and a WOCCU Board Member recently made a one day visit to Haiti to meet with Credit Unions and their members.

While there, the group visited several ’caisses populaires’ (credit unions) - all of which are currently operating from makeshift tent accomodation.

Marlene’s thoughts during the visit are below:

What I am seeing cannot be true.  Miles and miles of rubble.  Houses, schools, churches, businesses and financial institutions.  Pancaked, cracked and crumbled.  Dirt and dust everywhere.  Garbage piles, streets broken and potholed.  And traffic weaves in and out. 

Tents everywhere.  A former golf course with 80,000 tents.  Tents in front of or among stores and homes.  People won’t sleep in homes.  Even those undamaged for fear of another quake.  Tents in every field or lot.  Thousands and thousands...miles and miles...but among it all are the colours of the people of Haiti.  Everywhere you look, people trying to sell something or go to work or working at roadside.  And they tell me that what we are experiencing is so much better.  There is food and water at least.

Schools are opening starting end April so kids are returning to a ’normal’ day.  Walls are covered with art.  Then there are the numbers painted on the buildings.  Red - must come down, do not enter, yellow - needs fixing but fixable and green - welcome back.

We visited four Caisse (credit unions being supported by the Canadian Credit Union system).  All with destroyed or heavily damaged buildings.  All working from tents.  All trying hard to serve members.  Some with staff injured or dead.  All needing all the help we can give them.  Most will be insolvent when year ends as default rates are big.  One credit union 80% members dead.  Their members have lost everything, including their lives.  Many can not be found.  Yet they try to continue to lend as it is even more important now.  No insurance and all talked of a need.  All took great solace in the fact that credit unions outside Haiti want to help.  And all needed that help.  Credit Unions are not buildings, they are people.  And people are needing to help people. 

Cecache Credit Union	Clef Credit Union
Cecache Credit Union’s temporary accomodation	Marlene (left) presenting well needed supplies to Mamev Credit Union

WOCCU and credit unions around the world will continue to help the Haitian credit unions and Haitian people to rebuild their lives.  If you would like the support them through making a donation to the International Credit Union Disaster Relief Fund, log on to www.woccu.org/give

Hoping to go on holiday?

Make sure you have the right travel insurance cover.

The latest travel disruptions and chaos as a result of the volcanic ash have highlighted once again how critical travel insurance is - and not only that but how important it is to have the right travel insurance for your own particular needs.

The need for travel insurance is especially important if you have any kind of medical condition.  What many people don’t realise is that even a condition which you believe to be minor and/or well controlled should still be declared when taking out insurance.

This includes common conditions such as asthma, high blood pressure or raised cholesterol.  Any condition which is not declared and accepted by the insurance company can lead to claims being declined if they are directly or even indirectly related to that condition.

Travelling with someone with a medical condition?
Were you aware that if their pre existing medical condition hasn’t been declared then any claim you make under your insurance may be declined should it be directly or indirectly linked to their medical condition?

To ensure you have the cover you need, we are delighted to have partnered with It’s So Easy Travel Insurance. 

As well as standard travel insurance, It’s So Easy can provide cover for a wide variety of medical conditions including HIV. Annual and single trip policies are available.

For more information, call 0845 222 4205 or use the online quotation facility 

April 1st 2010 sees the launch of a new life insurance partnership for Scotwest members.

FamilyLIFE+ is a guaranteed, whole of life insurance product which allows you to organise cover for yourself and other members of your family - up to 12 people can be covered at any time on the one policy.

Starting from as little as £2 per month, the insurance has been designed to provide benefits to those who suffer bereavement in their family and is provided by CUNA Mutual Insurance (Europe) Limited - a leading ’ethical’ insurer.

Find out more here or call 0845 121 2416

We are delighted to welcome two new employers to the credit union. 

British Polythene Industries (BPI) is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of polythene products. 

All Greenock based employees can now make use of the services and benefits available from Scotwest and save the easy way - straight from their pay. 

For all Ardeer employees - we’re hopeful the scheme will be opened up to you shortly.

Mediaco-op are a co-operative specialising in the creation of film and video and in running media training.

Welcome to Scotwest!

If you would like your organisation to offer Scotwest
as a free employee benefit, be sure to let us know

We are delighted to advise that a new search facility has been developed for the website which allows members to check previous account transactions as well as their most recent transactions.

For all accounts, with the exception of the credit union current account, you can search for transactions dating as far back as 1st October 2006.  For the current account, transactions dating back to 13th May 2008 are available.

The new search facility can be found with the ‘Transaction History’ section within the secure member area.  Your last 10 transactions for each account will still display automatically however the new search facility allows you to set up searches based on date ranges, amounts and/or transaction types.

Commenting on the latest enhancement, Scotwest Chief Executive, Rod Ashley said ’We have been working on this latest development with our website designers for some time now and see this as another step forward in the development of our online services for members.’

’As with any new development, we would welcome feedback from members on any challenges they face with the search facility as well as any suggestions for how this or indeed any aspect of our website could be enhanced further.’

Login to view the new developments here 

Scotwest have joined with more than 50 other credit unions around the world to raise small change and make a big difference in the lives of the working poor abroad.   

 Members who visit the Scotwest office will be able to contribute to the campaign through donating “small change” in a special coin box in the credit union’s reception area.

’We believe the financial opportunities our members receive, such as a safe place to save and affordable place to find a loan, should be available to everyone,’ explained Scotwest Chief Executive Rod Ashley.  ’We are therefore pleased to join credit unions around the world in the “Small Change, Big Difference” campaign.’

’Donations will help develop credit unions in developing countries, enabling them to offer dignity and financial services to the working poor, one family and one small business at a time.’  

The campaign was developed by the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) to give credit union members everywhere a chance to tangibly support international development through credit unions. Donations will be used by WOCCU’s charitable foundation for the Credit Union Start-up Fund, which assists new and small credit unions in developing countries help the working poor lift themselves from poverty.

Gifts can also be made any time at www.woccu.org/give.   

Scotwest is all about providing members with services that matter and make a real difference to them. 


We have recently launched a few new insurance partnerships for products which protect against the unexpected and make those ’I never thought it would happen to me’ moments that little bit easier to cope with.

• MortgageCover+
  Launched earlier this year, MortgageCover+ has been designed to help members to continue to meet their mortgage payments and related outgoings in the event they are unable to work due to an accident, sickness or involuntary unemployment.
  
  With a recent BBC survey* suggesting that two thirds of people across the UK know someone personally who has lost their job during the recession and 40% of those surveyed worried that they too may face unemployment, there has never been a more important time to make sure you have cover just in case you need it.
  
  Members can design the policy to suit their needs with the monthly premium reflecting the cover they need.  Cover is available from under £5 per month and you can even choose to arrange cover for up to 150% of your monthly mortgage payments to help cover additional bills.
  
  Initially launched with an online quotation facility, a new telephone quote facility is also now available on 0845 121 2416.
  
  
• Home Insurance
  All of our members are different and so we have chosen an Insurer who can provide a range of home insurance products so that you can choose the one that matches your needs.  Select & Protect work with some of the UK’s leading insurance companies and pride themselves on their ‘aim to pay’ philosophy for all valid claims.

  Through them, you can now obtain a policy that suits your home down to the ground and covers the possessions you’ve built up whether you’re a first time buyer, have a family home or are further up the property ladder.

  Obtaining a quotation and applying for cover is easy with both online and over the phone options available (0845 365 1693).
  

*Source: ComRes/5 Live survey 12/07/09

Scotwest Chairperson Deirdre Forsyth visited SENSE Scotland’s Touchbase facility earlier this week to meet some of the children who attend the centre and to hand over a cheque for £1000.  The donation marks the first anniversary of our FutureSave account and is part of our Community Involvement Programme.

Commenting on the donation, Rod Ashley, Chief Executive of Scotwest said, ’We are delighted to support SENSE Scotland and hope that this donation will allow them to continue the great work they achieve for hundreds of disabled children and their families throughout Scotland who are faced with sensory impairments.’

’As Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning & MSP Fiona Hyslop recently highlighted, with the current financial climate it is now more important than ever that young people are educated to manage their money carefully from a young age.’

’Our junior acocunt has been a great success and we hope to encourage many more youngsters to get into the habit of saving from an early age.’

Find out more about our FutureSave account here

From 1st October 2009, our loan protection and life savings insurance will change.

From this date, the cover for loan protection insurance will be enhanced with cover extending from the current age 65 limit to provide cover up to the member’s 70th birthday.

For life savings insurance, the changes will result in all members receiving cover up until the date of death. The level of cover provided will be based on the member’s age at time of death and their level of savings.

Commenting on the change, Scotwest Chief Executive Rod Ashley explained,

’The cost of providing this insurance has been placing an increasing cost burden on the Credit Union.  It was clear from discussions with the insurance company that we had to make changes to the policy or cover may have been affected.  The new policy provides more equitable cover for members and the majority of members will not have any change to the cover they currently enjoy.  We are particularly pleased that we have been able to secure enhanced levels of cover for those within the 25 to 50 age bracket as they will in the main be those with young dependants for whom more provision would be needed in the event of the death of the member.’

Information on the new cover is available here

Our FutureSave account allows current Scotwest members to set up a savings account for a child up to age 16. 

Whether it’s for a son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, niece, nephew or godchild, with a FutureSave account you can choose to save regularly or simply make deposits as and when you wish.

Acting as account trustee, you control the account and are the authorised signatory. 

Having listened to our members, some of whom are looking to save without the child’s knowledge, a recent change sees all account correspondence sent to the Trustee. 

Find out more and start saving for a child close to you today!

We are delighted to introduce a new holiday discount scheme for all Scotwest members with Barrhead Travel.

Members can benefit from discounts on holiday bookings and take advantage of special holiday offers.

For more information, log in to the member section.

Further to recent enquiries - we would like to confirm that as a Credit Union, Scotwest does not take referrals from credit brokers.

Credit brokers charge for making loan referrals - as much as £50 in some cases.

Instead, anyone who lives or works in the West of Scotland can join Scotwest and once a member can apply for loans from us. 

Applying for a loan does not guarantee it will be granted however.  As a responsible lender, loan decisions are based on ability to repay with income and expenditure assessed.

If you have any queries or would like any further information, please call us on 0845 634 7634.