More than half (55%) of all federally insured credit unions had fewer members at the end of the first quarter of 2022 than a year earlier, according to first-quarter numbers analyzed and released by the federal credit union regulator Tuesday.
Those credit unions tended to be smaller ones, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) reported, with about 60% having less than $50 million in assets at the end of the first quarter.
According to the Q1 2022 State-Level Credit Union Data Report, only seven states saw membership growth at their credit unions, while 33 states (and the District of Columbia) reported membership declines at local credit unions. Eleven states saw their credit unions’ memberships remain static or see modest increases (under 1%).
The agency characterizes the membership growth across the states as “at the median.” That means, the agency said, that half of all federally insured credit unions had asset declines at or below 0.4% percent and half had membership growth of 0.4% or more. Membership declined 0.5% at the median in the year ending in the first quarter of 2021, the agency said.
In membership numbers released last week, the NCUA noted that overall membership at federally insured credit unions reached 131 million memberships at the end of the first quarter. Those credit unions with assets of more than $1 billion (410 total) showed membership growth of 8.1% — but all of the five asset categories below that showed membership declines.
Those five categories are: $500 million to less than $1 billion (291); $100 million but less than $500 million (1,084); $50 million but less than $100 million (694); $10 million but less than $50 million (1,511); and less than $10 million in assets (1,014). Together, those credit unions make up 91.6% of the 4,903 federally insured credit unions at the end of the quarter.
The smallest group saw a membership decline of 12% — the largest drop — and the number of credit unions in that group fall from 1,105 to 1,014.
At the same time, the three smallest asset categories saw their net worth decline, by 1.9%, 5.5% and 5.6%, respectively.