JAMAICA Co-operative Credit Union League (JCCUL) has announced that 10 credit unions across the island have so far signed up to its e-payment services platform, JCUES.

The organisation stated that, by the summer of 2014, it hopes to have 100,000 credit union members using the various JCUES offerings, which include credit union account balance enquiries, electronic bill payment to LIME, Flow and NWC, as well as mobile credit top-up.

“We are on target, based on our projections over the past three months since JCUES was launched,” noted Heston Hutton, managing director of Centralised Strategic Services Limited (CSS) – the new business model set up by JCCUL to offer centralised professional services to all credit unions and external clients.

The first set of credit unions authorised to offer the JCUES services are: C&W J Co-operative Credit Union; JPS & Partners Co-operative Credit Union; Insurance Employees Co-operative Credit Union; Hanover Co-operative Credit Union; First Heritage Co-operative Credit Union; Manchester Co-operative Credit Union; Montego Co-operative Credit Union; St Catherine Co-operative Credit Union; St Thomas Co-operative Credit Union and Jamaica Police Co-operative Credit Union.

Hutton added that discussions were currently taking place with other key stakeholders which should see more services being added to the list of offerings during the first quarter of 2014.

He said that as the local forerunner in the area of e-payment services, the Bank of Jamaica continues to assess the JCUES programme against international best practices for mobile money services.

“One of the most regularly used JCUES services so far has been the mobile credit top-up facility with credit union members using it several times a day, seven days a week,” said Hutton.

“Mobile commerce is set to revolutionalise the financial industry in Jamaica by providing true financial freedom for all Jamaicans, irrespective of social standing and class. And the credit union movement is extremely proud to be leading the charge with the introduction of JCUES, which is set to serve the approximately 60 per cent under-banked persons in our society. In fact, if it were not for JCUES some of these persons would not have been able to do any financial transactions other than by using cash,” Hutton said.

Hutton was integral in delivering the JCUES solution.

On July 16 this year, JCCUL received official approval from the BOJ to launch the pilot of Phase 1 of JCUES.