WASHINGTON – Callahan & Associates, Inc. has launched its Credit Union Tracker Performance, a downloadable packet of more than 20 custom graphs that provide credit unions with insight into their quarterly performance trends versus their peers. The Performance Tracker's PDF charts and graphs enable credit unions to measure and compare quarterly credit union performance results in six categories including growth, earnings, efficiency, member service usage, and lending, Callahans said. It also focuses on an area that is critical to credit union success. For the inaugural release, Callahan's has chosen to focus on auto lending, the fastest growing loan category in credit unions as of Sept. 30, 2005, according to the firm. "We designed the Performance Tracker so that any credit union-large or small- can present strategic analysis to members of the board or update staff on recent successes as well as areas for improvement," said Jay Johnson, executive vice president of Callahan. The shortened third quarter (2005) data cycle created "a more urgent need for convenient and reliable data in a timely manner," Johnson said. "In the current environment of tight margins and slow growth, it is essential that credit unions benchmark their performance and act on the results," he added.