MADISON, Wis. — The industry should expect to see a slowdown in membership growth for the rest of the year based on historic seasonal trends coupled with return on asset declines.
According to CUNA Mutual Group's latest "Credit Union Trends Report," total membership was estimated to be 90.8 million at the end of the August. Credit unions continued to report strong gains with a 1.4 million member year-to-date increase, which is 344,000 above figures for all of 2007, the data showed.
CUNA Mutual said credit union expense resources for expanding membership are limited around this time of the year and that it expects efforts to focus more on expense savings through purging low-balance membership rolls rather than on adding select employer groups. Next year's gains are expected to be "highly dependent" on deposit pricing and its ability to deliver "reasonably priced" access to credit, according to the report.
Recommended For You
Meanwhile, as credit unions place managing through an extremely challenging environment as their top priority, merger talks and planning could be sent to the backburner.
There were 8,224 credit unions at the end of the August. On a year-to-date basis, the credit union count was down by 172 institutions, according to CUNA Mutual. Current levels of market consolidation are well below the company's forecast of a 321 credit union loss in 2008.
It may take 12 to 18 months before there is enough stability in the financial services marketplace to see strategic mergers resume in earnest, according to CUNA Mutual, adding market consolidation is expected to be above trend thereafter. The company warned that mergers may go up even more if the fallout from the current financial market crisis changes the underlying value of a credit union charter such as a move to one regulator or taxation.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
