Corporates Set Asset Records

Corporate credit unions saw a second consecutive year of record growth during 2002. At year end the corporates had total assets of $68.9 billion, a 14% increase of year-end 2001. The assets of corporate CUs are up 108% since 1997, according to the Association of Corporate Credit Unions.

Not surprisingly, asset growth has been driven primarily by increases in deposits by natural-person credit unions at the nation's 31 corporate credit unions. Total share deposits at corporate credit unions were $60.4 billion on Dec. 31, 2002, an increase of 16.2% over the $52.0 billion in share deposits at year-end 2001. The $60.4 billion in total share deposits is more than double the $27.2 billion in credit union deposits at corporate credit unions at year-end 1997.

Core capital (reserves, undivided earnings and paid-in-capital) for the corporates also saw an increase of 72.3% over the past five years. Core capital totaled $2.1 billion at the end of last year, compared with $1.2 billion at the end of 1997, while total capital (core capital plus membership shares) climbed 60.8% to $4.5 billion at the end of 2002.