THE IRISH LEAGUE OF CREDIT UNIONS A.G.M: The Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) featured small pink piggy banks among the paraphernalia at its stand at the specially erected exhibition dome during the league's annual meeting in Killarney this weekend.

The rest of the 40-plus large stands which came to court business from the 4,000 delegates from 335 unions and their €6.6 billion savings were far from piggy bank status.

Some of the major players in the Irish business and financial worlds were angling to win even a tiny share of business from what has become one of the largest financial services organisations on the island, but one whose approach was strongly criticised in an independent report last week.

No concession was made to dispelling the myths of the little office next door, or allowing the press in to cover the issues that the 2.2 million members of credit unions would love to know more about.

The press were barred from the conference hall by stewards who turned reporters back from the stairs. Even ordinary delegates were slow to speak about proceedings.

The best that could be managed between Friday and Saturday was 15 minutes with the outgoing president, Mr Jim McMahon.

Cashflow Services Ltd, which deals with debt recovery, was next door to the piggy banks at the ILCU stand.

As well as some of the main banks, the debt recovery company numbers 170 credit unions among its clients who use it for assistance with the recovery of bad debt.

Davy Stockrokers, the biggest single provider of investment services to credit unions does "a fair amount of business with the unions". It enhances returns for the various unions in guaranteed index tracker specially designed with credit unions in mind, for instance.

Architects and office design firms were represented to cater for the growing number of branches up-grading their appearance, to "smarter than banks" status in the words of one exhibitor from Offaly.

Gerry Condon Associates architects, with offices in Dublin and Cork was demonstrating a number of their credit union designs. Among the plushest was the Blackpool office near the church in the working class district of Cork. Credit unions are aware of the needs of small companies and "are in touch with reality" Mr Condon explained.

Now with £13 million in savings - five years ago it had £5 million - the new office in Blackpool is poised to take advantage of the closure of banks in the area recently, a committee member explained. At any rate they like others have an office to be proud of.

One-stop shop and an "anti-bank" mentality among credit union members were reasons cited for an appetite for foreign exchange services at the unions. Software and computer companies were anxious too to gain the contract for a new computer system.

Integrity Software, one of the biggest supplier of services to credit unions, counted 140 unions from small industrial unions to community unions among its clients.

It had not been asked to tender for the last failed attempt by the ILCU to develop a technology system to link the member unions, but it would be keen to do so, said Mr Justin Scanlon, systems analyst with Integrity Software .

Like other software representatives at the exhibition he wondered why all of the €34 million for the failed ISIS went outside the country.