Our Services

Guiding credit unions through the regulatory process
The current account is a highly regulated service, and it is important that all legal and regulatory requirements are adhered to.

Payac employs risk and compliance experts whose credit union and current account experience ensures that your credit union’s delivery of current accounts will meet and exceed industry best practice. We ensure that legal and regulatory adherence is embedded in all aspects of our service and that regulatory obligations are not viewed as an obstacle to business but rather as an opportunity to enhance the delivery of a superior service.

Our services extend to

• Guiding members through the application phase
• Managing the attestation phase on behalf of our members
• Sanctions and PEP screenings
• Management of partner due diligence on behalf of our members
• Management of credit union due diligence on behalf of our partners
• Provision of data for regulatory returns
• Submission of regulatory returns on behalf of members

Making the most of your current account service
The provision of current accounts represents a new departure for our members. There is a steep learning curve that may seem daunting at first to staff. It is an all-encompassing service with most areas within a credit union having a part to play, from Operations to Compliance to Marketing to Finance.

Before your credit union opens an account, Payac will deliver training to staff in all areas. This training, which is delivered in person or online and which is supported by high quality manuals and online resources, ensures that all staff are confident in their abilities to deliver a top-class service to your members.

What’s more, these initial training sessions are supplemented with follow up refresher courses which ensure that staff are fully up to date with the latest product and market developments.

And we don’t just stop there. We provide training to credit unions that aim to ensure that credit unions are equipped with the strategic tools to exploit the wonderful opportunity that current accounts represent. Our training and material focus on strategy, sales, and performance management, and allow credit union management to understand the bigger picture impact of current accounts and how best to manage this new service.

Raising awarness and maximising your credit union’s return on investment

Being able to offer the current account service is one thing – achieving an awareness of the service offering among members and potential members at both a local and national level is an entirely different challenge.

Payac recognizes the crucial role that marketing can and will play in the success of the credit union current account and we provide an invaluable marketing support service, tailored to the needs of our members. Working extensively with Marketing Managers of our member credit unions and our creative partners, Payac has developed a highly effective marketing toolkit that can be used by credit unions to support the promotion of the current account service at a local level that complements the national marketing undertaken by Payac.

The marketing support service provide by Payac includes the following:

Brand identity and design
Payac has partnered with Irish creative agency, Idea, to develop the distinctive “Current Account from your credit union” brand.

Marketing Toolkit
Some of the features of the toolkit are listed below.

• Brand Identity and Guidelines
• PVC Banner Artwork
• Personalised Radio Ads
• Social Media Graphics
• Stock Imagery
• Press Ads Artwork
• Brochure Artwork
• Poster Artwork
• Large Debit Card Artwork
• Pull-up Banners Artwork
• Email Signature Footer Image

Campaign Management
Payac manages promotional campaigns centrally, such as those in support of the Google Pay launch and the summer student campaign. We provide the marketing material to credit unions in support of these campaigns, ensuring effective and consistent delivery of messages.

Marketing Compliance
We manage marketing compliance on your behalf so that you don’t fall foul of any regulatory pitfalls. Your Marketing Managers will be free to concentrate on marketing the current account service to your members, safe in the knowledge that all promotional material is in line with regulatory requirements.

National Promotion
Payac has developed the “current account – from your credit union” and “currentaccount.ie” brands to help market and promote the service nationally. The current account’s standardised pricing and product features mean that “current account – from your credit union” is now included on price comparison websites such as bonkers.ie and ccpc.ie, thereby facilitating national awareness and promotion. The “currentaccount.ie” brand and its association with the LGFA will also help to raise the profile of the service nationally.

Mastercard Partnership
Through our partnership with Mastercard, Payac credit unions have the opportunity to participate in Mastercard’s Priceless competitions and use Mastercard assets such as Champions League tickets and trips to destinations such as Disneyland Paris as an effective promotional tool.

Social Media Campaigns
We use our own in-house expertise to develop social media campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the current account service offering at a national level.

Leveraging the power of data – Introducing CUBE
Today, more than ever, financial institutions are using big data to understand their customers’ needs. Current accounts represent the ultimate opportunity for credit unions to use data both to manage and enhance performance. Payac’s bespoke CUBE system will allow credit unions to truly unlock the power of data.

Performance Management
Always know the most up to date performance metrics. At the click of a button, find out how many cards you have issued, how much fee revenue has been generated, and whether your members prefer to withdraw cash or pay with their debit card.

Member Analytics
Credit unions have always been good at understanding their members. With Payac’s CUBE analytics, get to know them digitally in a way that will allow your credit union to offer them the services that they want and need. Ensure that marketing campaigns are optimally designed to target the right members with the right service.

24/7 support, 365 days of the year
Payac offers a dedicated credit union support help desk between the hours of 9am and 5.30pm. Our dedicated member support representatives are trained to deal with every possible query that might arise, so your credit union officers, whether it be a teller, risk officer or operations manager, can rest easy knowing that whatever the issue, we have you covered.

And of course, we offer a dedicated call centre 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for your cardholders, which means that your members will always be looked after, no matter the time of day or night.

Proactive identification, investigation, and escalation
Providing debit cards can be a complicated business. Payac looks after daily scheme reconciliation so your credit union can focus on looking after your members.

We aim to ensure that any reconciliation issues are proactively identified and investigated with your ITSP, card processor, scheme and card issuer.

Mitigating risk and minimising member loss
With fraudsters becoming more and more sophisticated, the risk to debit card programs is ever present. However, Payac’s partnership with FIS ensures that current account holders receive market leading protection against fraud.

As part of its market leading fraud detection service, RMS, FIS applies dynamic rule sets to maximise fraud identification. With each new instance, the RMS system “self-learns”, thereby optimising cardholder protection, no matter how sophisticated the fraud.

Steps

• RMS accesses cardholder behaviour database
• Predictive analytics are applied to identify potentially fraudulent transactions
• Fraud monitoring staff make cardholder contact to verify transaction authenticity
• Fraud investigators review and ensure fraud attempt is captured in the
  database for future system learning

Maximising positive member outcomes
Have you ever been charged twice for the same product? Or ordered something online that never arrived? Unfortunately, disputed transactions are part and parcel of current accounts.

The good news is that Payac will manage these transactions on behalf of your credit union and your members.

Through the development of our bespoke CUTab system, your credit union can share the relevant transaction details with us, and we will take care of the rest. From dealing with the scheme, the processor, and the issuer, we make sure that your members best interests are represented, and that disputed transactions result in a positive outcome for the member.

Leveraging scale to deliver value
One of the many benefits of joining Payac is the access that it will give your credit union to world class partners. By leveraging the combined scale of its members, Payac is able to enter into commercial arrangements with partners on favourable commercial terms that individually would not be possible.

We partner with the best

• MasterCard – Global leader in the provision of payments infrastructure, supporting in excess of 2 billion cards
• FIS – largest global payments processor with 75 billion transactions processed annually
• Intesa San Paolo – Largest banking group in Italy with €1 trillion+ in assets
• Transact Payments Limited – Experts in payment and card solutions

By joining Payac, your credit union will be partnering with a shared services company with a proven track record in successful vendor selection processes and ongoing management of partner relationships. Indeed, we make sure that our members’ interests are represented at all times and in all dealings with our partners. Payac’s priority is maximising the value of the commercial arrangements into which it enters on behalf of its members.

As a member of the Central Bank of Ireland’s Current Account Switching Code, Payac is ideally placed to help your members overcome the obstacles encountered by account holders when moving financial service provider.

We work with retail banks to ensure that account holders moving their accounts to or from a credit union are fully supported at every stage of the process, enhancing the member experience while maximising the number of new account holders for the credit union.