WASHINGTON, DC (February 15, 2019) — This week, Callahan & Associates hosted its Trendwatch webinar, a quarterly event that recaps industry performance trends, highlights credit union success stories, and identifies areas of opportunity. Now a full decade after the Great Recession, analysis from Callahan’s year-end 2018 Trendwatch found that credit unions continue to successfully compete in the financial services industry.
Callahan analysts identified three trends from 4Q 2018 credit union performance data:
• Credit unions have added 28 million new members in the decade following the Great Recession;
• Delinquency reached lowest year-end level since 2006;
• Total revenue rose 13.0% to $74.5 billion.
Today, more consumers are choosing credit unions than ever before, says Callahan & Associates partner Jay Johnson. This performance is not only reflected in the industry’s growing membership base, but in higher product usage and loan and savings balances, indicating deeper and more meaningful relationships.
“As other financial institutions pulled back from lending in 2009, credit unions increased their lending activity to members as the ‘credit crunch’ hit,” says Johnson. “Their work with members during the Great Recession demonstrated the cooperative difference that aligns credit unions with member goals.”
Credit unions continue to deliver value to members in 2019. Examples include Caltech Employees Federal Credit Union ($1.7B, La Canada, CA), which increased its dividends on shares by 56.2% year-over-year; USAlliance Financial Credit Union’s ($1.7B, Rye, NY) High Dividend Savings, which helped members save with a “true” variable rate; and Premier Members Credit Union’s ($1.1B, Boulder, CO) market-linked certificates, which allowed members to take advantage of changing market rates
in a rising rate environment.
Callahan clients are encouraged to use resources such as Peer-to-Peer, CUAnalyzer, and CreditUnions.com to do their own research into fourth quarter 2018 data sets to discover more insights from the past decade, as well as identify other changing performance trends. To learn more, click here.
For nearly 40 years, Callahan & Associates has been instrumental in guiding credit union leaders to make informed strategic decisions to ensure their long-term relevance. They accomplish this by helping credit unions measure performance, identify strategic opportunities, and build collaborative networks, all through a mission-focused lens. Learn more at www.callahan.com.
Alexandra Gekas
Callahan & Associates
agekas@callahan.com
