What credit unions lacked in size they made up for in speedcompared with banks in 2017.

Credit unions lending rose at a faster pace in most sectors thanbanks last year, according to data released this week by the FDICand CUNA Mutual Group.

CUNA Mutual's monthly trends report showed credit unions held $984.8billion in total loans at Dec. 31, up 10.7% from a year earlier anda growth rate more than four times faster than community banks, andtwice as fast as banks as a whole.

Credit union assets rose 6.3% to $1.4 trillion due to a 6.3%increase in deposits, a 3% drop in borrowings and a 7.7% increasein capital.

With loan balances growing faster than assets, the loan-to-assetratio ended 2017 at 70.4%, up from 67.5% a year earlier. The fastloan growth also helped loan delinquency rates fall to 0.79% inDecember, down from 0.83% a year earlier, according to CUNAMutual.

The FDIC's Quarterly Banking Profile showed loans at thenation's 5,670 banks and savings institutions rose 4.5% to $9.7trillion, while assets grew 3.8% to $17.4 trillion. Loans at thenation's 5,227 community banks rose 2.4% to $1.5 trillion, andtheir assets grew 0.8% to $2.2 trillion.

Credit unions had faster growth in three major sectors:

• Credit cards at credit unions grew 8.3% to $58billion. At community banks they fell 7.9% to $2 billion, whilegrowing 8.2% to $865.1 billion among all banks.
• Total car loans at credit unions grew 12.8% to $342.8 billionin 2017. At banks they grew 1.8% to $450 billion.
• Total real estate loans at credit unions grew 9.3% to $480.9billion. At community banks they rose 2.9% to $1.2 trillion, whilegrowing 3.7% to $4.8 trillion among all banks. At credit unions,first-lien mortgages grew 9.9% to $397.1 billion, while second-lienmortgages grew 6.7% to $83.8 billion.

Much of credit unions' overall growth in 2017 came from autoloans, which grew faster than most other parts of portfolios.

Real estate's share of total loans fell 62 basis points to 48.8%by Dec. 31, while total car loans grew 66 basis points to34.8%.

New car loans grew 14.3% to $135.7 billion, while used car loansgrew 11.9% to $207.1 billion.

Gains among credit unions in new car sales came as overall unitsales of cars and light trucks fell 1.8%. U.S. dealers sold 17.3million vehicles last year, below the record high set in 2016 at17.5 million units. After last year's drop in unit sales, sales forJanuary through February are down 0.7%.

“Expect auto sales to slow to 17.1 million units in 2018, whichis still above the 16.5 million sales rate that economists believeis the inherent long run demand,” the trends report said. “Factorssupporting auto sales include: ample access to credit, low debtburdens, strong job growth, growing hourly earnings, rising stockprices and rising home prices.”

Also encouraging is low debt burdens. Household debt was 102% ofdisposable income in 2017's third quarter, the lowest rate sincethe first quarter of 2002, according to the Federal Reserve's Flowof Funds report. “This improvement in household debt should helpthe economy avoid a recession for the next couple of years,” theCUNA Mutual report said.