This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
1970s
1970s
1970 might be regarded as the watershed year of the organization. In this year, the Westmoreland Building Society engaged in its largest number of mergers, as well as undertook internal and external adjustments, including its name change to Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) in December 1970.
With the plans for the mergers safely underway, it was time to implement another major project in the growing organisation. This time it was to computerize the operations. Mr Bailey recounts that he was among those selected to be a part of this new computer division and he was subsequently employed to the Westmoreland Building Society as Computer Manager. Together with two other persons, one being a representative of NCR, they wrote Jamaica National’s first mortgage programme.
By 1971, the process to automate the operations and continue the rich tradition of being a Society that strives to safeguard the interests of its members, was well established in the new Jamaica National Building Society.
Following this early spate of mergers, the St. Thomas Mutual Building Society, founded in 1897, formally merged its assets with that of the JNBS in September 1976. The Jamaica Permanent Building Society established in 1878, merged with the JNBS in 1977 and finally in 1983, the St. Mary’s Benefit Building Society established in 1915, merged with the JNBS. The final two acquisitions were Hanover Benefit Building Society in 1996 and Jamaica Savings and Loans Building Society in 2001.
Management Control Systems
With the rapid growth of the new entity, the computer system could not accommodate the additional work, particularly the idea of also processing savings accounts. This shortfall gave birth to an idea, which came to fruition four years later, as a decision to purchase a service bureau and Management Control Systems (MCS) to carry out this function. Eventually, MCS would serve as the base of Jamaica’s first on-line real time banking system as some branches islandwide were connected via telephone lines to the computer located at its office.