Compared to banks, credit unions have done a better job at bouncing back from the lending slump brought on by the Great Recession a few years ago.

According to analysis from data tracking firm SNL Financial, loans at credit unions have reached an all-time high. However, loans at banks and thrifts are still more than $200 billion below a second-quarter 2008 peak, the financial data analysis firm said.

As of June 30, loans at credit unions have grown 72.52% to $621.27 billion from $360.12 billion a decade ago, SNL Financial said.

In the first part of the decade, credit unions also experienced an upward trend in their loan-to-deposit ratio aided by a faster pace of loan growth that occurred through the end of 2006, according to SNL Financial.

The scenario changed in 2007 and 2008 when the ratio took a dive. Starting at the end of 2008, the loan-to-deposit ratio dropped by 15.67 percentage points to 67.42% as of June 30, 2013, the SNL analysis showed. Credit unions did see a bright spot during the first quarter of this year when the ratio experienced a 155-basis point increase, the firm said.

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