WHEN Richard Swan, a Glasgow-based IT consultant, joined a credit union, he expected it to be "slow, a dinosaur, not online and so on".

But he says: "I moved our savings accounts to ScotWest very much on a point of principle, wanting to move away from the big banks, but that very quickly escalated to a level of being very pleasantly surprised as a customer.

"All the mod cons such as online banking, speedy responses from their customer service team, and excellent products and rates, have really bowled me over."

Mr Swan says he would ideally like to transfer all his banking to ScotWest. "What frustrates me is I can't do the day-to-day current account things, with standing orders and direct debits."

But he has opened a Christmas savings account, which will pay a dividend of 1.5 per cent, alongside his easy access account which currently pays 0.75 per cent. Typical credit union savings rates for easy access may not top 0.75 per cent, and may come as an annual dividend, but Glasgow Credit Union last year paid a dividend of 2.5 per cent, following 3 per cent the previous year, while at Grampian Credit Union it was one per cent.