Now fast forward to New Year's Eve in 2014.

There were 6,273 federally insured credit unions, and the number of single common bond cooperatives plummeted to 1,092, or 291 single associational and 801 single occupational chartered credit unions, according to the NCUA.

The number of multiple common bond and community credit unions, however, skyrocketed to 2,835.

As the world was saying goodbye to 2014, the number of operating federal credit unions totaled 3,927 and the total number of federally insured, state chartered cooperatives was 2,346.

A variety of factors drove the rise of multiple and community cooperatives, and officials from the NCUA expect this trend to continue, though at a slower pace as the number of credit unions continues to shrink due to industry consolidation.

Mergers certainly contributed to the increase in multiple and community charters.

Rob Leonard, director of the division of consumer access at the NCUA Office of Consumer Protection in Washington, believes an interest in converting to community charters perhaps occurred because single charter credit unions tapped out most of the potential pools available for occupational and associational groups.

Credit unions that used to have single associational or single occupational statuses also began seeing their missions evolve to serve their entire communities because the U.S. economy was rapidly changing, he noted.

While many single occupational credit unions grew across numerous manufacturing industries from the end of WWII to the late 1960s, the onslaught of foreign competition and the rise of the global economy contributed to the decline of U.S. manufacturing that began largely unnoticed in the early 1970s. As a share of the U.S. economy, the manufacturing industry has dropped from about 28% in 1953 to 11.5% in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.

"Going back 25 years at that time I was completing my college work in Rochester, N.Y. and I remember the big news in the paper in 1990 in Rochester around Christmas time was what would be your Kodak moments," Leonard recalled. "Now, 25 years later, there is virtually nothing at Kodak anymore [headquartered in Rochester]. They are just a shell of their former selves. That's happened all over the country with various large employers."

Substantial changes in U.S. military operations also drove credit unions to change to community or multiple charters. Over the past 25 years, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission closed more than 350 military bases to streamline the operations of the U.S. Department of Defense in the post-Cold War era.

"Throughout the 1990s, a lot of military-based credit unions not only changed their charters but changed their names to reflect more of a broader competitive reach rather than just staying tied to a military base or military affiliations," Matt Billouris, deputy director of the NCUA's Office of Consumer Protection, said.

Population growth, particularly in the Southern and Southwestern states, also drove credit unions to switch to community and multiple bond charters.

Although Leonard expects these charter trends to continue, he said they probably won't be as dramatic as they were over the past two and a half decades.

In addition, the TIP charter became an option for federal credit unions in 2003 when the NCUA approved four TIP charters. This charter enables single-sponsor credit unions to serve all employees in a specific trade, industry or profession within defined geographic parameters.

Most TIP charter approvals occurred in 2004, 2005 and 2006, when the NCUA approved 10, 11 and 15 TIP charters, respectively.

The number of TIP approvals, however, fell to just five in 2007. From 2008 to 2013, the federal agency green-lighted 26 TIP charters, but there were no TIP charters approved in 2014 or in 2015 to date, according to the NCUA.

Since 2003, the NCUA has approved 71 TIP charters throughout the nation.

In April, the NCUA in a split vote approved a rule change that makes it easier to add associations to federal credit unions' fields of membership. Board Chair Debbie Matz and Board Vice Chair Rick Metsger supported it, while Board Member J. Mark McWatters did not.

The change to the association rule will allow credit unions to automatically add associations from 12 categories. They included alumni groups, religious groups and churches, electric cooperatives, homeowner associations, labor unions, scouting groups, parent teacher groups, chambers of commerce, athletic booster clubs, fraternal organizations and civic groups, ethnic or cultural groups, and professional groups.

"We felt strongly that credit unions should not be required to wait for approval from the NCUA each and every time they want to add an association that clearly meets the common bond requirement," Matz said. "We recognized there are certain categories of associations we don't need to test to know they qualify. That's why we proposed seven categories of associations to be approved automatically."

However, McWatters argued that the rule added more regulations that it eased.

The final rule – except for the regulatory relief offered in the preapproval process – accomplishes little except to increase the regulatory burden on the vast bulk of credit unions that remain in full compliance with the letter and the spirit of the associational common bond rules, McWatters said.