Hurricane Sandy: Maine Service Bureau Hunkering Down, Two New Jersey CUs Announce Closures

The Maine Credit Union League in Westbrook, and its subsidiary, Synergent, is taking precautions to monitor the operations of a service center, which houses MCUL’s data processing and IT systems for credit unions throughout the state.

With expectations for high winds and heavy rain arriving in Maine later today from Hurricane Sandy, the League and Synergent said that its facility will be staffed overnight to monitor the facility and systems for any issues that may result from the storm.

Synergent operates the service center for MCUL. It includes a service bureau for credit unions running on the Symitar core processing system.

“After meeting early this morning, our incident management team outlined a series of steps it was implementing to maintain adequate service to all of our credit unions, and to ensure the safety of our employees,” said John Murphy, president/CEO of the Maine Credit Union League and Synergent.

“We spend a significant amount of time and resources on business continuity planning so we are well-positioned and prepared to deal with these types of scenarios. We will continue to monitor updates throughout the afternoon and evening, and will make modifications and provisions as necessary,” Murphy said.

While the potential exists for widespread power outages in the region, the service center in Westbrook is equipped with redundant power generation systems (both diesel and natural gas), and is able to operate independently of street power indefinitely, according to MCUL.

Meanwhile, McGraw Hill Federal Credit Union in East Windsor, N.J. said its branches in New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Iowa will be closed Tuesday. ,

It branches are equipped with an emergency generator, so while the area is anticipating significant power outages, the $299 million credit union’s IT servers are expected to be operational, the credit union said.

Members can still access their accounts via mobile devices and the credit union’s website. In addition, credit union service center representatives are available to conduct basic transactions even though our branches are closed.

Also, Motion Federal Credit Union in Linden, N.J. has closed all branches until further notice. The credit union is using its website to update members and said its electronic services remain available.

“We are keeping our eyes on weather conditions to determine when branches will re-open,” said the $86 million credit union’s marketing manager, Cynthia Weaver.