ARLINGTON, Va. — NASCUS' study of how state-chartered credit unions are serving their members used a carefully drawn up representative sample to include the most accurate data, but on the topic of shared branching participation, the report sowed a little bit of confusion.

The NASCUS study, which had been requested by former House Ways and Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) in March 2006, reported that 61.51% of state-chartered credit unions surveyed participate in shared branching. This percentage is far in excess of the percentage of state chartered credit unions that use shared branching overall. According to CO-OP Shared Branching, the shared branching subsidiary of CO-OP Network, only 706 of 3,263 state-chartered credit unions nationwide, or about 22%, participate in shared branching.

NASCUS clarified the apparent discrepancy, reporting that the 61.51% was the percent of the survey sample that reported using shared services (40% of total respondents), a term which covered both shared ATMs and shared branching. When viewed as a percentage of the survey overall, NASCUS reported that 24% of the state-chartered credit unions in the sample used shared branching, which is still higher than the national average but not markedly so.