The NCUA approved 46 mergers by the end of the second quarter, down from 54 mergers approved by the federal agency in the first quarter of 2016.

The second quarter consolidations are substantially less than previous second quarters. In the second quarter of 2015, the NCUA approved 72 mergers, 70 in 2014 and 62 in 2013.

Despite the lower number of consolidations in this year's second quarter, the pace of mergers on an annual basis have occurred on a consistently elevated rate of about 250 to 260 consolidations per year since 2001. This trend indicates a steadily increasing total merger rate as the number of consolidations has remained relatively steady, even as the number of total credit unions continue to decline, according to a white paper recently published by the Southeast CUNA Management School, which weighed the good and the bad aspects of the industry's consolidation.