Growth in several areas including loans and assets helped FirstTech Federal Credit Union boost its net income in 2012 by 51% over2011's figure.

The $5.6 billion credit union in Palo Alto, Calif., reported2012 net income of $62.8 million. Total assets rose 9.3% to $5.6billion, with total loans rising by 15.6% to $3.3 billion, according to FirstTech.

The credit union said it is also well-capitalized with totalreserves of $537.2 million, resulting in a prompt corrective actioncapital ratio of 9.57%, which compares to the NCUA'swell-capitalized standard of 7%.

“During 2012, First Tech benefitted from the continuing economicrecovery, strong growth within the U.S. technology sector and animproving housing market,” said GregoryMitchell, president/CEO of First Tech. “Our strong financialperformance is a testament to the hard work and dedication of ourmore than 800 employees who maintain a single-minded focus ofdelivering an exceptional experience for our members.”

First Tech said its 2012 results rank the credit union in thetop tier of all U.S. credit unions based upon loan growth and assetquality and the top quartile based upon total earnings. The creditunion said it will reinvest its 2012 earnings into the creditunion.

“We expect this reinvestment to provide us with the resourcesneeded to continue delivering competitively priced share and loanproducts for our members while also making significant technologyand process investments that will allow us to better meet the needsof our members and their families,” Mitchell said.