[Nathan]

Hi all

We, like many CUs I’m sure, use Unity Trust as the main bank account for incoming money from and for members. Included in this are benefits, such as Child Benefit, PIP, EESA, Universal Credit etc. Since the changes Unity have implemented “due to banking regulations” we can no longer see certain information on incoming transactions, such as the sort code and account number it came from.

We ask all members to use their membership number as reference for deposits and while some don’t seem capable of following this instruction, most do, and PIP, EESA and Child Benefit all come in on unique references, such as the CHB reference or national insurance number, so on the whole, this change isn’t affecting us.

However, I’ve come across, today, two deposits from UC which, due to Unity not longer displayed all the remitter information, I can no longer identify. The reference for UC payments seems to be random, and while we used to be able to see the name of the intended recipient as part of the remitter information, this is no longer the case. I was wondering if anyone else has come across this problem and what they are doing/have done to try and resolve it?

Most members who have UC come in just transfer it to their SuitsMe card, so I suspect the easiest solution is to have them change the bank details on their UC claim to their SuitsMe details, but I am interested in what others are doing. I don’t know why Universal Credit doesn’t just come in on NI number anyway!

Thanks.

Nathan McNaught - Loans Officer - Advance Credit Union

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