“Member Number”: Your member number is your account number. You may have more than one Member Number based on the accounts you hold with Meridian, such as joint accounts and trust accounts.

PAC stands for "Personal Access Code". It is the password that you use to access your online banking account. Your PAC is the same password that you used to access online banking prior to the recent changes. If you are new to online banking and require a PAC, please contact the Quality Contact Centre at 1-866-592-2226.

The first page asks for your Member number. Until you enter your Member number we don’t know whether you have been set up with Double Authentication or not. Therefore the Member number login can’t appear on the same page as any Double Authentication information.

Once you have registered your computer, you won’t have to answer the security question. You will only be required to check your image and caption are correct and then enter your PAC. As such, the security question cannot appear on the same page as the image and PAC. This measure has been implemented to keep your personal and financial information secure.

When you initially registered, a cookie was placed on your computer for identification purposes. Every time you clear your cookies or use a different computer, the computer will not remember that your account has been registered. As such, you will have to repeat the registration process.

You should only register computers where you are the owner of the computer. We recommend that you do not register computers that are shared, such as those found in libraries, or shared work computers.

Answers may only contain numbers, letters, and spaces. Make sure you pick questions that are easy for you to answer, but difficult for others. The system recognizes the exact answer you entered during registration. For instance, if you initially answered the question “What is the name of my best friend?” with both their first and last name, the system will not recognize only their first name as a correct answer. Another problem could be missing punctuation. For example, if you entered the city you live in as “St. Catharines”, the system will not recognize the answer without the period. Answers are not case sensitive. Your answer to the ID question must be entered exactly as when you set it up.

The double authentication process has been introduced to the login process of online banking to improve security and help guard against fraudulent scams, such as phishing. 'Double authentication' has become increasingly common to online banking and is the new industry standard. Fraudulent activities such as phishing can often be difficult to detect, as the fraudulent webpage looks very similar to the legitimate site. With these new measures, Members can be certain they are entering their information into Meridian Credit Union’s online banking platform, as the security questions and images are unique to the individual Member. Although our existing online banking platform is very secure, this improvement demonstrates our commitment to keeping your personal and financial information secure.

For more information on phishing, click here.

The use of the security images and questions is optional until August 29th, 2010, at which point you will be required to set up your customized security picture and questions to access Online Banking. You will need to do this for all your accounts at Meridian that you access through Online Banking.

The use of security images and questions linked to answers known only by you creates an additional level of security (in addition to your Member Number and PAC) for Meridian Credit Union Members. Since the images and questions/answers are personalized and unique to each Member, you can be certain that you are entering personal information into a legitimate site. By showing your image and caption, we are letting you know that we are who we say we are. The intent of these features is to combat phishing. For more information on phishing, click here.

If the image and caption are not those you selected, you need to make sure you are at a legitimate Meridian website. If you are unsure whether this is a valid website, please contact the Quality Contact Centre at 1-866-592-2226.

We strongly discourage you from using your password as the caption, as it will be visible prior to being prompted to enter your password (PAC). Your caption should be something that you can easily remember and identify, and could be a phrase, while your password must be 6-8 characters and is case sensitive.

No. You will only be asked to answer one of the security questions when you log in from a new or unregistered computer. These questions should be easy for you to answer but difficult for anyone else. They are in place to help protect your information from being accessed by someone without your permission.

It is important that you communicate with those who you share access to online banking the picture/caption/challenge questions you have selected. Choose a security image, caption, questions and answers that are known to other individuals sharing the account.

The contact centre is not able to provide answers to the security questions set up by one signer, nor are they able to identify the picture and caption selected.

Meridian is pleased to announce new features in our Online Banking service. These changes to Online Banking improve the security of our online banking platform and incorporate new features that improve your overall banking experience. You can take a tour of the new features by clicking here and selecting the “tour” tab.

Meridian Credit Union will always post information regarding new features on our website at meridiancu.ca. You can also sign up for updates to be e-mailed to you in order to be the first to hear about new features. To sign up, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

If you are unsure whether you are visiting a valid Meridian website, please contact the Quality Contact Centre at 1-866-592-2226.

Your name will appear on your statement or, will be indicated in the welcome message at the top of the page for online banking when you login. If you are uncertain, please call the Contact Centre or visit your branch.

We have updated the Online Banking Agreement to be consistent with the agreement all Members receive in branch. We have added Section 7 that reflects the importance of tracking disbursements and contributions to TFSAs and RRSPs to both avoid any tax penalties and maximize contribution room. Finally, we have removed wording in Section 2 to clarify that bill payments or transfers from two-to-sign accounts are not permitted when using electronic services.

PAC stands for "Personal Access Code". It is the password that you use to access your online banking account.

There are a few requirements for PAC's (passwords) that you choose:

• Must be from 6 - 8 characters in length. Choose a PAC with both numbers and characters. PACs that contain characters that are both upper and lower case are considered to be "stronger" (harder to guess, duplicate, etc.).
• They are "case sensitive". That means ALL characters within the PAC must be entered correctly in regards to being either uppercase or lowercase characters (just like you typed them in when you created your PAC)..
• Must be the same length when entered. If a password is missing a character or number when entered, it is considered incorrect.

For security reasons, your PAC (password) will be deactivated for a 24 hour period if you enter your PAC incorrectly three times during a specific time period.

If you enter your PAC incorrectly based on any of the password requirements, you will receive an "Invalid PAC" error message.

After three Invalid PAC messages, you will receive a "Deactivated PAC" error message. This means that you have entered your PAC (password) incorrectly three times, and that your PAC has automatically be temporarily disabled for 24 hours.

This is one of the security measures we have in place for online banking. It essentially means that anyone who may happen to get your account number would potentially get only three attempts at "guessing" your PAC. After that, the PAC would be deactivated for a period of 24 hours and they would not be able to continue to attempt further guesses to get access to your online account information.

1. After logging in for the first time

   When you log in to online banking the first time you are prompted to enter your Member Number (your account number) and Access Code (PAC) which is your password. You would use either your existing password or a password that has been provided to you.

   Online Banking will prompt you to read the Disclaimer and re-enter your password.
   

   Due to security reasons, you will be required to create a new password (PAC) to enter and use online banking. Enter your existing password and create and confirm your new password (PAC) in the other two fields on the page.
   

   From this point forward, your PAC (password) will be the one you created (and confirmed) during the first log in process that you completed ... NOT your existing password that you entered.

2. After the Contact Centre resets my PAC (password)

   Anytime your PAC is reset by the Contact Centre, you will be required to change it the next time you log in.

   Enter your the new PAC (password) that you received from the Contact Centre in the Existing PAC field and then create and confirm a new PAC (password) in the fields.
   

   NOTE: PAC's are "case sensitive", whether provided by the Contact Centre, or entered by yourself.

   From this point forward, your PAC (password) will be the one you created (and confirmed) during the process that you completed ... NOT the reset PAC (password) that you received from the Contact Centre.

3. Businesses using online banking

   Please be sure that once you have updated your PAC (password), that you share the updated PAC with other individuals within the business which are authorized to access the online banking account.

   In all cases, if an individual enters the incorrect PAC three times, the account will be locked out and you will have to call the Contact Centre to reset the PAC.
   

   If you call the Contact Centre, reset the PAC and create a new PAC when logging in, share the updated PAC with other individuals within the business which are authorized to use the online banking account. This will prevent other authorized individuals from using the wrong PAC when logging in and thereby disabling the account.
   

   NOTE: PAC's are "case sensitive", whether provided by the Contact Centre, or entered by yourself.

1. Accessing previously viewed online banking pages after logging out?

   You should not be able to see your previously viewed online banking pages once you have logged out of online banking. Any attempt to use the "Back" button on your browser after logging out will take you back to the login page.

   Caching of web pages is a browser based function which involves files being saved by the browser in a holding area (cache) on your computer's hard drive. By default, the browser is set to save pages that you have visited.

2. The previously visible "Enhanced Security"checkbox feature is now on by default at all times.
   • The "Enhanced Security" feature provides a directive to the browser not to save (cache) pages to your computers hard disk.
3. How to avoid browser caching altogether in Internet Explorer.

   • For even more security across other encrypted internet websites, you can also force Internet Explorer to not save encrypted pages.

     In Internet Explorer choose Tools > Internet Options Advanced (Tab) > Scroll to "Security" area > check - "Do not save encrypted pages to disk".

4. What else should I know about browser cached pages?
   • Meridian online banking uses a "session - state". These are assigned to each log in and are unique to that login until the session ends at either log out or if there is a timeout during the session. This means that if the session has ended (or expired), you will no longer be able to perform any transactions that were based on that session.
   • Avoid using the "Back" button on encrypted websites. This is general good practice for any security based website that you use on the internet where you encounter transaction based pages.
   • ALWAYS LOG OFF! It effectively ends your session. If you do not log off, but just close your browser window, your session will end automatically. Leaving your session open for more than 10 minutes with no activity will also end your session and you will be returned to the login page from that point if you attempt to continue.
   • Apply the "Do NOT Save Encrypted Pages" in Internet Explorer change (this is standard common internet security).
   • Disable or Turn Off any "Save Password" or "Auto Complete" features in ALL browsers.

1. Dish networks use "proxy servers" which cache information similar to how IE caches pages on your computer hard drive. This means that as members use areas within online banking, pieces of their session information are cached on the dish network server.

   If the same member logs in and uses online banking, the information contained in the proxy server "assumes" the information being passed to the online banking session is the one that is "already" in the cache and sends that message instead of the message from the browser. This gets "bounced" by online banking because it does not match the "actual session" that the member is currently in.

   Basically, the security in the online banking system is saying, ... "this information is incorrect because it does not match the current session info … Go back to the login page"

   Members should aware of this and disable caching in proxy server settings (in IE to begin with). Check with your service provider for additional details.
   

2. If the dish network is "load balanced" (switches between dishes for signal strength) and there is a possibility of latency (interrupted signal), this might lead to online banking thinking that the session had terminated due to a connection being dropped. The online banking system would then automatically end the session for security reasons. After that, the default action from online banking is to force you back to the log in screen (either to re-verify your session, or to login again) if you attempt to continue.

If you have set up a future dated bill payment, and funds are not available for payment on the date the payment is due, the bill payment information will remain for a period of one month and then be automatically removed. During this time, you will be unable to delete the bill payment information from online banking.

To remove the bill payment: If you pay the bill via your branch or the Contact Centre, they will "expire" the bill payment and it will no longer be listed in online banking.

The link in online banking currently takes you to the CUETS MasterCard site where you can check your MasterCard balance by entering your MasterCard number and password.

Former HEPCOE members' MasterCards are based on the MBNA MasterCard. Members can continue to check their account balances at the MBNA MasterCard website. Members can access the MBNA Canada website via this link - http://www.mbna.com/canada/.

This is an issue directly related to the Google® Tool Bar.

If you have installed the Google® Tool Bar on your browser, you will occasionally see yellow highlighted fields in online banking. This is directly related to functionality within the tool bar interfering with the "look and layout" of online banking. It does NOT affect the functionality of online banking.

The process by which Stop Payments are created requires that the cheque initially "clear" (be processed) on your account. The cheque will then be "reversed" the next business day.

This reversal would include reversing certain charges that may have been incurred (example: overdraft on account).

There is a fee for Stop Payments - see details.

Meridian Online Banking supports Quicken™ 2004 and above through its Quicken Download functionality.

Versions 2003 and below are no longer supported due to issues with date formatting variations as well as .QIF file formats no longer being available after 2003.

Online banking Quicken™ downloads to versions 2003 and below may still function properly depending on how the member has set up their information within Quicken™.

By default, Quicken™ attempts to use the "Banking Booster" feature to retrieve account information from Online Banking. This will fail as Online Banking only supports "Download to Quicken".

Use Quicken's Web Connect feature.

1. From the account register, select the Overview tab.
2. Click the Change Online Services button.
3. Click the Disable Online Banking Booster button.
4. Select the General Information tab.
5. Delete the account number (third box down, on the right side).
6. Click OK.

1. Open Internet Explorer and go to your bank's Web site.
2. Log in to your account.
3. Navigate to the download transactions section. As every bank's Web site is different, the wording for this section may vary slightly.
4. Select the account that you would like to download and choose download to Quicken.
5. Depending on your bank, you may be asked if you would like to save or open a file. Click Open to begin downloading information.
6. When Quicken prompts you, choose to Use an existing Quicken account, and select the corresponding account in Quicken from the drop-down list and click Continue.
7. Review the Online Update Summary window and click Done.

Your banking transactions have now been entered into Quicken.

Repeat the above steps for each of your OLBB accounts.

Yes. Quicken™ maintains a profile for each financial institution. This profile defines how a financial institution handles online banking such as how online payments are handled, what website you visit to download transactions and many other online banking features. Quicken™ checks periodically for updates to this profile.

If the profile has changed since Quicken™ last checked for an update, the profile in Quicken™ and the new profile will not be the same and will cause problems during the download process.

1. Choose the Online menu > Online Center.
2. Choose the financial institution you are getting the error for from the list in the upper left.
3. Press and Hold the CTRL+F3 keys and select Contact Info.
4. Select the financial institution you are getting the error for from the list and click Refresh.
5. Repeat steps 1-5 for all financial institutions you are getting the error for.
6. Re-enable the web download button after you have completed these changes.
7. Ensure that the name of the financial institution is Meridian.

Disabling your account to reset its online information can often correct download problems.

Intuit™/Quicken™ uses Web-Connect to facilitate downloading of files that contain financial information to your computer when your choose "Download to Quicken". These are then consolidated into the accounts you have set up in Quicken™.

Previously, HEPCOE Quicken™ accounts were identified during the download process and in your Quicken™ software as "Hepcoe". They are now identified in the Web-Connect process as "Meridian".

The problem arises due to the fact that Quicken™ still sees accounts as "Hepcoe" and does not know what to do with the information it receives from the download since the new information references "Meridian".

1. From the account register, select the Overview tab.
2. Click the Change Online Services button.
3. Click the Disable Online Banking Booster button.
4. Select the General Information tab.
5. Delete the Account Number (3rd box down on the right side).
6. Click OK.
7. Ensure that the name of the financial institution is Meridian.

Sign on to your bank website and download your transactions directly into Quicken™. You should now be able to download the transactions.

Members should disable the account and "re-link" it, (see "Disable the online services for your account"). When you next attempt to download your Line of Credit account information from online banking, Quicken™ will prompt you and ask which account you would like to use for the information it has downloaded.

In order to retain some account processes from the legacy CU's when Meridian moved to one common banking system, we created (or retained) certain specific accounts.

The Line of Credit account for former HEPCOE members is called the MaximiserLOC.

This is an issue with Quicken™ itself. As in any accounting process, information that is entered which "pre-dates" information which is already consolidated within Quicken™ requires manual re-entry.