Those credit unions that provided investment services to theirmembers in 2013 experienced a 9% increase in penetration, beatingout banks.

The finding is according to Kehrer Bielan Research &Consulting's 2013-2014 Kehrer Bielan Credit Union InvestmentServices Benchmarking Study, which culled data from 905 creditunions with investment services offerings and a survey of a sampleof 46 credit unions about the workings of their investment servicesbusinesses.

“The typical credit union in our survey generated $1,514 in revenue frominvestment sales per million of member deposits, compared to $1,384per million of consumer deposits for the banks in our survey oflarge banks that own their own broker dealer,” said Tim Kehrer,director of the survey and a senior research analyst atKBR&C.

The share of members conducting investment business at theircredit union increased from 2.7% in 2012 to 3.0%, and revenue frominvestment services grew 4.0%, according to the study.

At the same time, the share of credit unions providinginvestment services increased to 13.8%, up from 12.3% in 2012.

The typical financial adviser in a credit union brought $7.7 million of newinvestment assets to the institution during the year, and produced$246,325 in investment services revenue, which is shared betweenthe credit union and the broker dealer, said Kenneth Kehrer, aprincipal of KBR&C.

“While these metrics lagged far behind the productivity ofadvisers in the large banks, the credit unions actually achievedbetter penetration of their opportunity,” he explained. “The creditunions in the survey produced $360 in net income per million ofshare deposits, 21% better penetration than the banks.”

Tim Kehrer said referrals of members to the credit union'sfinancial advisers remain an important ingredient in the recipe forsuccess. Credit unions in the top quartile in terms of FAproductivity provided 55% more referrals relative to their sizethan those credit unions with less productive advisers.

The typical credit union referred 1.7% of its member householdsto the institution's advisers during 2013, about the same referralpenetration as the previous year, according to Kenneth Kehrer.

“But as credit unions increase the number of advisers theydeploy, referrals per adviser are thinning out,” Kenneth Kehrersaid. “Last year the advisers in the credit unions surveyedhad one-third fewer referrals to work with; the same number ofreferrals were spread among a larger number of advisers.”