With its conversion completed at the end of 2003, Jamaica-based Westmoreland Credit Union, a JA$540 million community-based credit union, became Aurum's 100th Mercury customer. Momentum in the mid-size credit union market has been fueled by system enhancements including a recent agreement with qbt Systems, Inc., which enables the company to create seamless interfaces to a variety of best-of-breed financial services solutions. Aurum is currently scheduled to convert an additional 20 legacy-based customers per month through the end of the second quarter 2004.

"Aurum delivered superior planning and execution throughout our conversion process," said Gregory Ashman, general manager of Westmoreland Credit Union. "The system is flexible and highly intuitive and our staff adapted to it quickly. With this new, sophisticated core solution in place, we now have the tools to reach our goals of expanding both our membership and our services."

As the 100th customer to implement the Mercury solution, Aurum's core processing system developed exclusively for small- to mid-tier credit unions, Westmoreland Credit Union now uses the system to serve the diverse needs of its nearly 40,000 members. And Westmoreland's 35-person staff also leverages the solution's open and integrated design - which is optimized for Microsoft Windows 2000 professional architecture - to streamline operations and generate additional fee income opportunities.

Mercury users represent a broad cross section of the mid-size credit union market including, select employee group (SEG), professional or religious affiliated and community-based institutions. Today, Mercury meets the core processing needs of credit unions throughout North America - from high-volume institutions like Westmoreland to full-service credit unions like Eagle One Credit Union, which serves the needs of Philadelphia-area postal workers through a diverse list of product and service offerings ranging from share drafts to credit cards to mortgage loans. Eagle One implemented the Mercury system in May 2003 to support its growing services portfolio, which now includes integrated telephone banking and Internet home banking from Aurum.

"Our focus on offering members a diverse set of products and services makes the ability to connect easily with value-added solutions from Aurum and other best-of-breed providers absolutely essential," said John King, chief executive officer for Eagle One Credit Union. "With our legacy system, interaction with other vendors and software was often a challenge. But with the open architecture of the Mercury system, we're doing more, offering more and saving members time and money. Mercury provides the backbone we need to deliver the innovative solutions and outstanding service that set us apart from other institutions."

In order to help its credit union customers continue to expand their service portfolios through the use of best-of-breed capabilities, Aurum recently signed an agreement with qbt Systems, a leader in real-time financial systems integration, to leverage the company's MultiPoint Integrator, a real-time transaction processing engine that provides seamless connectivity across financial services systems, including electronic banking services such as EFT processing, telephone banking and Internet home banking.

A representative sampling of additional customers among the company's first 100 conversions include Medical Park Federal Credit Union of Wheeling, West Virginia; UALU #159 Credit Union of Martinez, California; WVDHHRE Federal Credit Union of Charleston, West Virginia; Twin Peaks Credit Union of Salt Lake City, Utah; Valdosta Federal Credit Union of Valdosta, Georgia; Columbia Municipal Employees Credit Union of Columbia, Missouri; Barstow Railway Employees Credit Union of Barstow, California; Group Service Credit Union of Tulsa, Oklahoma, The Cornerstone Credit Union of Des Moines, Iowa; and National Resources Conservation Service Federal Credit Union of Fort Worth, Texas.

"Mercury represents the best the industry has to offer for the mid-size credit union market," said Hugh Butler, executive vice president of Aurum's Credit Union Services division. "And because it's built with the most advanced technology and capabilities available, the system has the power to meet our customers' needs both now and well into the future."