ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The latest credit union data indicates that credit unions with card portfolios worth more than $1 million continued to see those portfolios outstrip the performance of their other assets, according to NCUA records.
After analyzing the most recent collection of NCUA data, Asset Exchange, a credit union card broker and consultant owned by Fidelity National Information Systems, reported that the 2,100 credit unions with card portfolios worth more than $1 million saw their credit card assets grow 12% between Sept. 2007 and Sept. 2008 to $31 billion. This was five percentage points higher than the 7% growth in their total assets. The number of card accounts grew about two percentage points over the same period, the brokerage reported.
A higher rate of inflation cut the percentage of the CU card portfolios that grew better than the rate of inflation from 75% to 56% over the last 12 months, but AE estimated that the trend would reverse itself when inflation moderated.
Given their rate of growth in comparison to growth in overall CU assets, AE also reported that credit card assets have become a steadily larger part of overall CU assets, moving from being 4.67% of credit unions' overall asset value in September 2007 to being more than 4.86%. Over the same period, the average card balance increased 9.00% to $2,566, AE reported.
AE's preliminary analysis indicated five credit unions with portfolios greater than $1 million sold their portfolios in the third quarter of 2008 with about $13 million in combined balances. By comparison, in the third quarter of 2007, 14 credit unions sold their portfolios representing $40.3 million in balances, the agency reported.
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