NEW YORK CITY - While most CUs are struggling with stagnant membership growth, they might want to look to their community development credit union brethren for advice.
A study by the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions shows the CDCU sector is demonstrating better growth rates than federally insured credit unions (FICU) as a whole. "Financial Trends in Community Development Credit Unions: A Statistical Analysis," analyzes the performance of its 221 member CDCUs and found that as of June 30 CDCUs experienced greater rates of growth in membership, assets, loans and shares than their FICU counterparts. The only notable exception, the federation said, was net worth, which remained level.
Membership growth at CDCUs expanded to 3.56%, more than two-and-a-half times the national FICU rate of 1.41%, while delinquency and charge-off ratios declined from 1.85% to 1.71%, and 0.88% to 0.69%, respectively.
"Despite operating in difficult low-income, low-capital environments, continued growth and improvements in financial soundness should help community development credit unions make further progress toward mainstream performance standards in traditionally challenging areas such as net worth, delinquency, and charge-offs," said Federation Director of Policy Research Greg Gemerer.
The analysis also found a notably steep decline in member bankruptcies at CDCUs, which dropped from 0.35% to 0.13% of total membership and a drop of 63% in outstanding loans subject to bankruptcy.
For info: www.cdcu.coop.
