In their continued efforts to pay down debt, credit union members are still opting for highly liquid accounts.
That’s according to CUNA Mutual Group’s June Credit Union Trends Report. There has been a strong preference for highly liquid accounts such as regular shares, money market accounts and share drafts. Since April 2010, more than 128% of the total savings increase was accounted for by liquid deposit accounts.
Total savings climbed 0.7% in April, bringing the year-to-date gain up to 3.7%, the data showed. At $834 billion, savings were up $35 billion (4.4%) since April 2010. Still, certificates of deposit, which represented 25.6% of savings, fell 5.2% to $11.7 billion through the same time period.
“From a member perspective, households are rational and will continue to pay down higher-cost debt obligations versus build savings, which are losing ground to inflation,” according to Dave Colby, chief economist at CUNA Mutual.
The industry’s current results continue to be well below historical trends and below what might be expected given the high levels of economic and employment uncertainty, Colby noted.
