Hunter United Credit Union
Forging the way for credit unions in chip card technology
About the partnership
Hunter United Credit Union has partnered with Indue limited to become Australia’s first credit union to introduce EMV chip card technology.
Indue Project Management Office said, “This has been an enjoyable and satisfying new technology design and build project for both parties and whilst the Indue Project Management Office is very excited to be adding the EMV Chip Card product to its suite of standard implementations, this will allow Hunter United to be the first credit union in the country to issue and offer the benefits of a Visa chip card.”
John Ford, Managing Director of Hunter United Credit Union said, “It is imperative that we offer a modern and competitive card product with outstanding security. The provision of a chip card with Orion fraud monitoring ensures leading edge security for our members’ cards. We are looking to leverage these advantages to strengthen our point of difference in the ultra competitive credit card market."
Additionally, to ensure Hunter United service their member’s entire needs, they will also launch a Visa Debit card in conjunction with the Credit card.
“The decision to introduce Visa Debit is a key plank in our strategy of modernising Hunter United and improving member convenience. The ability to make payments on-line and over the phone is critical to our members and our proprietary debit card didn’t offer that functionality. Given the need to improve our appeal to younger prospective members the overhaul of our card range was an easy decision to make”.
Hunter United Card Design
The card was designed to represent the local iconic landscape of the Hunter region to ensure it was appealing not only to their existing loyal customers, but also to other financial institution customers. Newcastle based advertising agency, Cactus Creative Communications, was responsible for developing the final design.
John Ford said, “We wanted the cards to be instantly recognisable by Hunter residents offering a strong local feel. We did run a staff card design competition and while there were some noteworthy entries the competition generally confirmed that as graphic designers we make pretty good bankers.”
Catherine Batch, Head of Marketing and Communications said, “In these types of projects Indue becomes an almost silent partner, as no Indue branding has been included in the card design.
“This is due to the fact that this product is all about our client’s brand, not ours, and we therefore tailor each card solution to support our clients brand reinforcement strategy. This in turn, allows our clients to keep a consistent customer experience from its front office servicing to their brand presence.”
What are EMV and Chip Cards?
EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, Visa and it is the global standard, developed by EMVCo, for chip-based debit and credit payment transactions.
Europay, MasterCard and Visa developed the EMV standard in the mid 1990’s and the first version of the EMV standard was completed and available for use by banks in 1996.
Chip cards (also known as smart cards) are debit and credit cards that contain an embedded microchip. Compared with existing magnetic stripe cards the computing power and memory of the chip means that chip cards can offer new payment options and services, greater security and more convenience.
Chip cards can process information, store encrypted and confidential information, which is significantly more secure than on a magnetic stripe card. Alongside payment applications, chip cards can also combine multiple functions or applications such as loyalty, identification, electronic purse, transit and health information.
All banks, building societies and credit unions will be required to implement chip card technology once over eighty per cent of Merchants in Australia have upgraded their facilities to accept chip card payments.
For further information on implementing this technology please contact Evelyn Bowen-Jones, Manager of Indue Project Management Office on 07 3258 4285.