WASHINGTON-In their 100-plus years of history in the United States, credit unions have never seen anything like the membership surge of the past two months.
While final numbers have yet to be tabulated, CUNA has estimated that more than 650,000 new members joined credit unions in the five weeks leading up to Bank Transfer Day on Nov. 5, including a whopping 40,000 on that Saturday alone. The numbers are based on a survey of 1,100 CUs, and indicate up to $100 million in deposits may have flowed into CUs.
A separate survey by NAFCU found that 54% of credit unions reported an increase in share growth resulting from Bank Transfer Day or an increase in bank fees, and that 41.7% tallied an increase in share growth of greater than 20% compared to the previous month.
NAFCU reported that its credit union locator, CULookup.com, set a new one-day record for site traffic on Nov. 5. In October visits to the website were more than five times the monthly average for number of visitors, and were up by more than 700% over October 2010.
The critical issue for credit unions isn't the new members, however, it's how many of those sign-ups will become borrowers. CUNA said its data suggests that about 60% of CUs that added new members on Nov. 5 said they also made loans on the same day totaling about $90 million (to both new and existing members).
But not all credit unions reported seeing similar increases; in fact some told Credit Union Journal that traffic was on par with what they typically see on a Saturday. In this issue Credit Union Journal details some of what credit unions around the country were reporting.
