Washington-area credit unions are leading the way in lending nationwide. While the nation saw a 1.1% decrease in loan growth, Washington has seen an increase of a little less than 1%. With a 7.6% increase in auto loans, a 4.8% increase in first mortgages, and a whopping 38.2% increase in business loans during the first quarter of this year.
According to Michael Schenk, vice president of economics and statistics at the Credit Union National Association, local credit unions have benefited from the resilience of the regional economy. “If you have a fairly strong economy, relatively low unemployment, housing values that have held up, wealth that hasn’t declined as much as in other areas in the country, that typically translates into people feeling more confident and secure about taking on additional debt,” he said.
He cautioned that while the loan growth is promising, it is “weak relative to what we would normally see in a recovery, reflecting that there is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the marketplace and a focus on paying down debt.”
Of course Washington-area credit unions should be happy to be seeing any growth at all. Most credit unions in the U.S. have not been so lucky.
As always, stay tuned to Credit Cards Professor for more credit card news and updates.
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