FICUs weather slow economy well; loan growth remains steady

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – U.S. federally insured credit unions continued to demonstrate strong asset and savings growth throughout the first three quarters of 2002, while loan and income growth remain steady. The end of September was the first quarter that all federally insured credit unions filed quarterly call reports in light of the expanded examination cycle. Only credit unions with assets over $50 million had to file quarterly before. The new 5300 short form was also introduced for credit unions with less than $10 million in assets. Of the 9,751 credit unions that submitted call reports in September, 4,240 completed the short form, NCUA said. Mortgages showed the largest increase, according to NCUA data, with first mortgages growing 9.93% and other real estate loans growing 10.35%, but nearly all loan types showed increases during the third quarter. In the first three quarters of 2002, total assets grew 9.33%, from $501.5 billion to $548.3 billion, and savings jumped 9.18% from $437.1 billion to $477.3 billion. At the same time loans increased 5.59%, from $322.4 billion to $340.5 billion. The loan delinquency ratio also dropped from 0.82% to 0.78%, as delinquent loans fell 0.15% from $2.646 billion to $2.642 billion. Other data included: *Loan to share ratio declined from 73.77 to 71.34%; *Net worth increased 7.76%, up from $54.4 billion to $58.6 billion; *Net worth to total assets ratio declined from 10.84 to 10.68%; and *Membership grew 1.97%, up from 79.4 million to 80.9 million members. Additionally, approximately 1.6 million new people joined credit unions in 2002 through the end of September, bringing the total federally insured credit union membership to 80.9 million.