Fifty-five percent of credit unions with a card portfolio of $1 million or more saw a decline in the size of those portfolios during 2003, according to analysis by AssetExchange, a brokerage firm for card portfolios. The company said its analysis shows that for 2003:
* Growth among larger portfolios offset the shrinkage experienced by the majority, resulting in an overall increase of card assets by about 4%.
Total assets (including credit cards) among credit unions with card portfolios larger than $1 million increased by about 12% in 2003.
* Credit cards, as a percentage of total credit union assets, declined from an average of 4.6% in 2002 to 4.3% in 2002.
* Average charge-offs increased from 1.9% in 2002 to 2.1% in 2003.
* The fraction of credit union members with their credit union's credit card declined to 19.0% from 19.3% in 2003.
* 83 credit union credit card portfolios over $1 million were sold in 2003, 12 of which were larger than $10,000,000. Some 131 portfolios of less than $1 million were sold or terminated.
