Credit unions made weaker-than-average gains from October to November in their consumer loan portfolios, according to America’s Credit Unions.
AmCU estimates released Thursday showed consumer loans rose 1.7% from a year earlier and rose 0.2% from October, compared with a 0.6% average October-to-November gain from 2015 through 2024.
Growth areas were HELOCs, second mortgages, credit cards and unsecured personal loans. Auto and first mortgage balances made tiny gains from a year earlier, which was an improvement over unusual strings of losses earlier.
First mortgages rose 0.1% from a year earlier and rose 0.3% from October, compared with the 10-year average gain of 0.6% for the month. First mortgages had shown small year-ago drops from August through October.
Second mortgages rose 7.9% from a year earlier and rose 0.4% from October, compared with the 10-year average gain of 0.5%.
HELOCs rose 13.8% from a year earlier and rose 1.4% from October, compared with the 10-year average gain of 1.1%.
Auto loans rose 0.2% from a year earlier, the second month in a row of 12-month gains. Balances were shrinking from May 2024 through September 2025, and then rose 0.3% in October.
However, the auto portfolio fell 0.2% from October, compared with the 10-year average gain of 0.6%.
Other secured loans, like for boats, fell 1.5% from a year earlier and fell 0.3% from October, compared with the month’s 10-year average gain of 0.2%.
Following the rising loan pattern of other cash-tapping sources, balances of unsecured personal loans rose 1.5% from a year earlier. Compared with the 10-year average October-to-November gain of 0.8%, unsecured personal loans rose only 0.6% in November.
Credit card growth looks weaker than it did a month ago because of revisions made by the Federal Reserve in its G-19 Consumer Credit Report released Jan. 8. The downward revisions affected balances only for credit unions. The Fed shaved 1 percentage point from growth rates for September and October, and made smaller cuts for July and August.
The new data shows credit unions held $86.9 billion in credit card debt on Nov. 30, up 3.4% from a year earlier. The gain was 0.4% from October to November — much smaller than the 10-year average October-to-November gain of 1.4%. The revisions resulted in a slight decrease in credit unions’ share from 6.8% in October to 6.7% in November. The share is still up from 6.4% in November 2024.
Banks held $1.2 trillion in credit card debt, down 2.1% from a year earlier. Their one-month gain was 1.51%, compared with the 10-year average gain of 2.3%. Banks’ share was 92.1% in November, up from 92% in October, but down from 92.2% in November 2024.
Finance companies held $15.4 billion in credit card debt, down 15.6% from a year earlier and down 0.51% from October, compared with the 10-year average drop of 0.4%.
AmCU’s monthly credit union lending estimates are pulled from Equifax data and do not include commercial loans, which now make up more than 10% of the movement’s portfolio. The values also differ from NCUA data because of different collection methods, but the monthly Equifax-based data provides glimpses of trends in the months between the NCUA’s quarterly reports.
Contact Jim DuPlessis at Jim.DuPlessis@arc-network.com.
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