Credit Union Annual Statistics 2021

The Bank of England publishes aggregate data every year based on credit unions’ 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 approximately 6 months for the data to be published. The data presented below was published on 29 July 2022 and is for the year ending 2021. Below are the headline figures for Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland), along with charts covering the previous 10 years worth of data from 2011-2021.

Headline Statistics for Great Britain

Credit Unions (returns submitted): 251

Total Members (including juniors): 1.40 million

Total Assets: £2.23 billion

Total Shares: £1.92 billion

Total Capital: £230.4 million

Loans: £1.01 billion

Income: £141.2 million

Expenditure: £114.3 million

Profit/loss (before tax): + £26.9 million

GB – Movement Over the Last Decade

ABCUL has plotted every year’s results since 2010 to provide a picture of how things have changed over the last decade. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please contact the policy team policy@abcul.org.

The number of credit unions continued to fall and have been declining since the number of credit unions in GB peaked at 698 in 2001. This trend is consistent and expected to continue, this is partially due to closures but mostly due to mergers as the sector is consolidating.

Assets have continued to grow over the last year. There was a 12% increase in assets compared to the figures reported in the 2020 annual BoE statistics.

Total membership minorly decreased by around 8,000 members (-0.6%) between the 2020 and 2021 annual statistics. However, GB credit union membership has increased by 57% compared to ten years ago.

The number of non-qualifying members has increased as is typical with the general trend of the last ten years. The 2021 annual statistics showed there to be around 23,200 non-qualifying members in GB, compared to 22,800 recorded in 2020.

Loans to members increased over the year from £1.0 billion to £1.1 billion and continues the overall upward trend of lending over the years despite a minor decrease in lending between the years of 2019 to 2020 which was likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic where fewer people were seeking credit.

The loans to assets ratio decreased by 2.3% between 2020 and 2021. The ratio dipped from 50.4% to 48.1% which is likely due to the trend seen following the COVID-19 pandemic where many (usually those who stayed employed during the pandemic) found themselves saving more and seeking less credit.

The number of staff employed by GB credit unions decreased by 33 individuals. Total staff members peaked in 2016 at 1,806, however due to the consistent decline in the number of credit unions the average number of staff per credit union continues to rise. In 2021, the average number of staff per credit union was 6.7, whereas there was an average of 3.5 staff members per credit union in 2011.

Total income decreased by 2.1% between 2020 and 2021, and the value of dividends paid also dropped by 5.4%. These two decreases are likely linked, because if a credit union saw a reduction in their total income, it was less likely they could pay a dividend or paid a smaller dividend. However, overall credit union expenditure decreased from 2020 to 2021 by 9.4% so many were able to reduce their costs. Credit unions overall saw a 49% increase in profits between 2020 and 2021. The total profits of credit unions in 2021 was £26.9m which is the largest profit seen on record – the profits will have been used to pay dividends and improve the credit union’s business. However, this increase is in part due to the rise in grant funding since 2019.

The number of net liabilities in arrears has decreased by 5.6% from 2020 to 20201. However, the value of net liabilities in arrears has increased to the highest recorded level of £81.75 million.

Continuing on from the commentary above, although the value of net liabilities in arrears did increase over the past year, the increase was minimal compared to the previous year. The increase between 2020 and 2021 was +1.92%, whereas the value increased by +62.36% between 2019 and 2020. This is likely due to many people’s dramatic change in economic circumstance from the covid-19 pandemic.

The average loan value in arrears in 2021 was £2479.07 which has nearly doubled (+£815.9 or +49%) over the last decade.

Similar to the number of net liabilities in arrears, the arrears to loans ratio has decreased (-0.4%) over the last year, but is 3.5% higher than it was a decade ago.

Total capital continues to rise annually, and total capital has increased by 107.4% over the last decade.

The average capital to assets ratio for 2021 was 10.4% which is the lowest ratio seen in the last decade.

Income received from grant funding is still significantly lower than it was a decade ago, but funding in 2021 did increase by £0.4m over the last year.

The liquidity ratio has overall remained fairly stable across the least decade with highs of 51.4% in 2014 and lows of 36.3% in 2019.

Across the last decade assets have continued to rise – with a particular increase between 2019 and 2021. Some of this steep incline correlates with the amount of grant funding over the years. Loans have steadily risen over the last decade and members have a mostly upwards trendline with a plateau seen since 2019.

For any questions on this please contact the policy team.