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Credit unions in the United States

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RTP Federal Credit Union in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

Credit unions in the United States served 100 million members, comprising 43.7% of the economically active population, in 2014.[1][2] U.S. credit unions are not-for-profit, cooperative, tax-exempt organizations.[3] The clients of the credit unions become partners of the financial institution and their presence focuses in certain neighborhoods because they center their services in one specific community.[4] As of March 2020, the largest American credit union was Navy Federal Credit Union, serving U.S. Department of Defense employees, contractors, and families of servicepeople, with over $125 billion in assets and over 9.1 million members.[5] Total credit union assets in the U.S. reached $1 trillion as of March 2012.[6] Approximately 236,000 people were directly employed by credit unions per data derived from the 2012 National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Credit Union Directory.[7] As of 2019, there were 5,236 federally insured credit unions with 120.4 million members, and deposits of $1.22 trillion.[8]

Due to their small size and limited exposure to mortgage securitizations, credit unions weathered the financial crisis of 2008 reasonably well. However, two of the biggest corporate credit unions in the United States (U.S. Central Credit Union and WesCorp) with combined assets of more than $57 billion were taken over by the National Credit Union Administration[9] on March 20, 2009.

  1. ^ Marte, Jonnelle (August 5, 2014). "About 100 million Americans are now using credit unions. Should you join them?". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
  2. ^ [1] CUNA. Archived January 17, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ See, e.g., 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(14)(A) for state-chartered credit unions and 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(1) for federally chartered credit unions, CUNA Model Credit Union Act § 0.20 (2007) see also 12 U.S.C. §§ 1751 note, 1752(1), 1768, available at "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-30. Retrieved 2009-05-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
  4. ^ Nikolopoulos, K; Handrinos, M. "The future of credit unions in the United States: evidence from quantitative extrapolations". Applied Financial Economics Letters. 4: 177–182. doi:10.1080/17446540701704349. S2CID 154922085.
  5. ^ "About Us". Navy Federal Credit Union. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  6. ^ Birch, Ray (April 9, 2012). "U.S. CUs Reach New Record: $1 Trillion in Assets". Credit Union Journal. XVI (15): 1, 26.
  7. ^ "Workforacreditunion.com - Credit Union Careers - Credit Union Jobs". Workforacreditunion.com - Credit Union Careers - Credit Union Jobs. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
  8. ^ "NCUA 2019 Annual Report" (PDF). National Credit Union Administration. p. 2.
  9. ^ Clifford, Catherine (2009-03-20). "U.S. seizes 2 big credit unions". CNN. Retrieved 2010-04-30.