Credit Union 2018 Statistics

The Bank of England publishes aggregate data every year based on credit union’s annual returns. Due to the time taken for credit unions to submit and the Bank of England’s statistics team to process the information it takes approximated 6 months for the data to be published. The data presented below was published on 31 July 2018 and is for the year ending 2019. Below are the headline figures for Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland), along with charts covering the previous 6 years worth of data.

Headline statistics for Great Britain

Credit unions (returns submitted): 277

Total Members (including juniors): 1,334,315

Total Assets: £1.6 billion

Total shares: £1.35 billion

Total Capital: £188 million

Loans: £969 million

Income: £121 million

Expenditure: £96 million

Profit / loss (quarter): £25 million

Great Britain – Movement over the years 

ABCUL has plotted every years results since 2013 to provide a picture of how things have changed over the last 6 years.

Comment: The number of credit unions continue to fall, and have been on the decline since the number of credit unions in Great Britain peaked at 698 in 2001. Credit union numbers have fallen 40% over the last decade and this trend shows no sign of slowing down which the largest percentage drop of credit unions since 2011.

Comment: Assets continue to grow steadily but has tapered off in percentage terms in recent years. In 2013 credit unions grew by 13% but only 4% over the last year. Asset growth is also slowing in absolute terms, credit unions grew by £145 million in 2013 but by only 64 million in 2018. The average assets per credit union has roughly double in the period from £3 million in 2013 to just under £6 million in 2018.
Comment: Total membership has also slowed down from 8% growth in 2013 to 3% in 2018. The average number of members per credit union has increased from 2942 to 4814.

Comment: The growth in loans has increased slightly in percentage terms from 7.6% in 2013 to 8.1% in 2018. In absolute terms the increase of loans was £48 million in 2013 and £68 million in 2018.

Comment: As a result of the strong loans growth, the loans to assets ratio has increased from 55.4% to 57.5% over the last year which is the largest increase in this ratio since 1998.

Comment: The number of staff employed has fallen in the two years since peaking at 1,806 in 2016. Whilst the sector is becoming rapidly more professional in nature, the heavily consolidation of credit unions discussed above has impacted numbers of staff working in the sector.

Comment: Income and expenditure have both experienced similar growth over the period, whilst interim profits have remained relatively flat.

Comment: There has been a marked increase in the loans to arrears ratio but this still remains close to the WOCCU target. This increase is due in part to credit unions increasing their lending risk tolerances but also  improving standards of recognising and accounting for non-performing loans.

Comment: Growth in capital has remained steady in the period, increasing between 8% and 10% per year. Last year capital grew by £15 million or 8.7%.

Comment: Since 2014 the sector has increased the amount of capital it holds against it’s assets. In numerical terms credit unions hold more capital than they ever have, although the sector did hold over 12% capital in the years 2011-2012.

Credit unions on aggregate exceed the highest capital requirement (8% +2% buffer), however, as capital is unevenly distributed across the sector it remains a significant challenge for many credit unions. ABCUL is continuing lobby the Prudential Regulation Authority and others to improve the sector’s capital regime which is currently restricting growth in otherwise financially sound and prudent credit unions.

Comment: Grant income for the sector has almost halved over the last 6 years and now represents just 3.8% of credit unions income.