Crossing $10B in Total Assets Still Rare for US Credit Unions

Since the third quarter of 2019, only nine U.S. credit unions have grown beyond $10 billion in total assets.

Sitting above $10 billion in total assets is an exclusive club for credit unions, with only 19 out of 5,019 operating credit unions in the U.S. above the critical threshold, compared to 155 out of 4,682 top tier U.S. banks at Dec. 31, 2021, excluding nondepository trusts.

Field of membership restrictions, a lack of sizable mergers and a reliance on earnings alone to subsidize growth are "major constraints" on credit union growth, according to Glenn Christensen, founder, president and CEO of CEO Advisory Group, an M&A consulting company focused on the credit union industry. But the increasing use of secondary capital, which was just made available to even more credit unions as of Jan. 1, could soon allow some credit unions to grow at a faster pace as they have a new avenue to fund growth, he said.

"The fact that credit unions have only been able to grow as fast as their earnings without having access to secondary capital has always hindered the industry," Christensen said in an interview. "[Secondary capital] is a significant benefit to the industry in that it's going to allow a lot more credit unions to accelerate their growth going forward, both organically and inorganically. Virtually every credit union that I sit with and talk to, they're all contemplating how secondary capital might benefit them going forward."

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