The $285 Million Shift: Size Is No Longer a Shield The average credit union that merged in 2025 had $285 million in assets. In 2018, that number was $36 million. That is roughly an eight-fold increase in the average size of a merging credit union in just seven years. I pulled thirty quarters of NCUA merger data and that trend is one of the most striking things in the dataset. Fo...

"Involuntary" doesn't mean what you think it means. Every year, roughly 20% of credit union mergers are categorized as involuntary. Most people assume that means NCUA forced the merger. It doesn't. In nearly all cases, the credit union itself checked the "involuntary" box because it was experiencing distress—poor financial condition, governance gaps, management challenges, or lo...

The Charter Conversion Pendulum Has Swung Since 2021, $41 billion in credit union assets has moved from state charters to the federal charter. That is a significant reversal. From 2018 to 2020, $24 billion moved in the other direction—from federal to state. Something shifted. In 2025 alone, eleven credit unions converted from state to federal charters, with nineteen billion doll...

At current pace, there could be fewer than 2,000 credit union charters by 2050. That's not a prediction—it's math. There are currently 4,316 credit union charters. If consolidation continues at the historical rate of three to four percent per year, here is where the industry ends up: At three percent annual attrition: roughly 2,015 charters by 2050. At four percent annual attrit...

We went through the Q4 credit union data on this week’s With Flying Colors  podcast. At a high level, things look good. Capital is strong. Earnings held up. Liquidity improved. Nothing jumping off the page as a problem. But when you spend a little time with the numbers, a few things start to stand out. 2025 Was Kind of a Reset Year After everything the industry went through—COVI...