A third fewer credit unions, twice the assets — and 52 of 4,299 below the capital line
Eleven years of NCUA Call Reports for every federally insured credit union: 6,284 institutions in 2015 became 4,299 by mid-2026 while assets grew from $1.18 trillion to $2.52 trillion. The median credit union is better capitalised than ever. Fifty-two are not.
Cite as: FACTANKER, https://factanker.com/record/a-third-fewer-credit-unions-twice-the-assets
Every federally insured credit union in the United States files a quarterly Call Report with the National Credit Union Administration. We loaded all of them from the second quarter of 2015 to the second quarter of 2026 — 45 quarters, 3,070,120 filed values — and computed, for every quarter, where each institution stands against all others, against its size class and against its state. This is what the filings say.
Consolidation without shrinkage
In June 2015, 6,284 credit unions filed. In June 2026, 4,299 did — 31.6 percent fewer. Over the same eleven years their combined assets rose from $1.18 trillion to $2.52 trillion, and the median institution grew from $25.7 million to $68.3 million in assets. Membership went from 102.3 million to 147.4 million. The sector did not shrink; it merged. The ten largest institutions now hold 19.0 percent of all credit-union assets, led by Navy Federal with $204.4 billion and 15.5 million members.
The capital line
The measure regulators use is the net worth ratio — net worth divided by assets, as each institution reports it. Under the NCUA's prompt corrective action rules a credit union is "well capitalised" at 7 percent and above, undercapitalised below 6 and critically undercapitalised below 2. The median ratio across all filers was 11.39 percent in 2015 and 12.65 percent in 2026; the weakest tenth moved from 8.01 to 8.93 percent. By this measure the typical credit union is stronger than it was.
Below the 7 percent line in June 2026 stood 52 institutions of 4,299 (1.2 percent), down from 154 of 6,284 (2.5 percent) in 2015. Thirty were below 6 percent, thirteen below 4, and eight below 2 percent. The lowest reported ratio belongs to Jackson Area Federal Credit Union in Mississippi: minus 145 percent on $60.9 million of assets. Each of the 52 has a page here with its filed figures and its rank, and a link to the record behind every number.
Small is capitalised, big is efficient
Capital ratios fall with size. The 771 credit unions under $10 million in assets report a median net worth ratio of 17.9 percent; the 25 institutions over $10 billion report 10.7 percent. The large ones lend more of what they hold: the median loan-to-share ratio across all filers rose from 60.4 percent in 2015 to 68.7 percent in 2026. Profitability is thinner at the bottom: 543 of 4,296 institutions (12.6 percent) reported a negative return on assets for the first half of 2026, against a median of 0.71 percent annualised.
Where they are
Texas has the most credit unions, 380, with a median net worth ratio of 13.62 percent; Pennsylvania (269), New York (268), California (239) and Ohio (192) follow. Every state has its own benchmark page with the same nine measures, quarter by quarter.
What this is and is not
Source: NCUA 5300 Call Report data as published quarterly, amounts in whole dollars as filed, one row per institution and quarter. The net worth ratio is the institution's own reported figure (account 998); loan-to-share and return on assets are computed from the filed lines, income year to date annualised with four over the quarter number. Percentiles are computed in the database over all institutions of a group in the same quarter. Earlier NCUA archives use a different file format and are not loaded; the series starts in 2015Q2. Credit unions are not banks: shares are member deposits and net worth replaces equity, which is why these benchmarks sit beside, not inside, the bank Call Report benchmarks.