Credit unions intend to introduce a bill-pay system on the west coast following the withdrawal of Bank of Ireland mobile banks on the Atlantic seaboard.
Two new sub-offices will also be opened shortly in the west, the Irish League of Credit Unions' chief executive, Mr Liam O'Dwyer, said yesterday.
Both initiatives are being taken in response to a request by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuiv, to provide an alternative banking service in more isolated rural areas.
Allied Irish Banks still provides a mobile service in parts of Co Mayo as far south as Leenane on the Galway-Mayo border but the decision several months ago by Bank of Ireland to stand down its mobile banks became a local election issue in Connemara and Co Mayo.
The bank cited security, health and safety, falling customer numbers due to alternative methods of bank and the cost of replacing the vans as the main reasons for the decision to cut the service after a quarter of a century.
Efforts were made by the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Mr Frank Fahey, to negotiate a compromise with the bank. These failed and over 3,000 people signed a petition.
The Bank of Ireland said it would still provide a periodic physical service on the Aran Islands. However it stressed that it had expanded its automatic telling machine (ATM) service in retail shops throughout the west, including establishing the first ATM on Inis Mór.
Mr Ó Cuiv approached the Irish League of Credit Unions on the basis of its "valuable role" as a community-based organisation.
Mr O'Dwyer told The Irish Times yesterday that it had received permission from the Registrar of Credit Unions to establish a bill-pay system which would allow for the payment of all utility bills across credit union counters.
A similar service is currently run by An Post.
Mr O'Dwyer said the service would be introduced on a pilot basis in the west and several other areas by the end of the summer, and would be extended throughout the network if it proved successful.
He added that two locations for new sub-offices have also been identified in the west, but discussions were still taking place and membership approval still had to be sought before the precise locations could be disclosed.
"Basically, we looked at the gaps that needed to be filled with the withdrawal of some, but not all, mobile banking, and we have tried to respond to this," he said.
The Irish League of Credit Unions has 540 member unions, some 2.6 million members and assets of more than €9.58 billion.
Last week the High Court reserved judgment on a claim by the Competition Authority that the Irish League of Credit Unions had engaged in anti-competitive practices, and had abused its alleged dominant position in the market for credit union representation.
