WASHINGTON – The rapid growth in credit union membership continued at a record pace as the credit union industry hit the $1 trillion mark in assets last month, according to CUNA.
Total assets for the nation’s 7,200 credit unions hit $999.1 billion on Feb. 29, and are believed to have hit the $1 trillion mark at the end of March, according to Bill Hampel, chief economist for CUNA, which won’t have the official verdict until later this month.
The big membership numbers that followed Bank Transfer Day last year continued for the first two months of 2012, with an estimated 700,000 new members recorded for January and February, according to CUNA. The average of 350,000 a month puts the industry on pace for record membership growth for the full year.
Credit unions added approximately 400,000 new members last October through December – one of the best quarters ever for membership growth – and about 850,000 in the final six months of the year, boosting the total to almost 1.3 million new members for 2011.
“Since late last summer we have had much stronger membership growth and it is continuing on into February this year,” Hampel told Credit Union Journal yesterday. Hampel cautioned the membership figures will probably be recalculated downward, but he still expects big numbers for new memberships.
The first two months of 2012 also showed negative growth in loans, for the third year in a row. Hampel said the first four months of every year typically are slow for loan growth, with the first quarter typically negative.
Savings grew 2% in February after declining slightly in January. The one trouble spot for lending, said Hampel, is the slowness in new car loans, even as there has been big growth in new car sales.
