A Closer Look at Credit Unions Adding Select Employee Groups in 2021
Learn which credit unions added the most select employee groups (SEGs) and potential new members across the past year.
Our recent article, which analyzed Credit Unions' 2021 SEG Additions, provided insights into the types of Select Employee Groups federal credit unions have added recently. Now, let's look at the credit unions themselves. In order to conduct a fair analysis, we've split our insights into three different asset size categories:
Small: Assets less than $100 million
Mid-Size: Assets between $100 million and $1 billion
Large: Assets greater than $1 billion
In this way, we account for the profound effect that asset size has on a credit union's ability to expand its Field of Membership (FOM). For each of these size ranges, we took a closer look at the number of groups added and the total potential members added to credit unions' fields of membership in order to determine which institutions had business development teams that performed exceptionally in comparison to their available resources. Asset sizes were determined by averaging the assets a credit union had at the time of their SEG additions and may not necessarily reflect current asset size.
Small Credit Unions (<$100M)
Adding Groups
Credit unions with less than $100 million in assets only added one to three SEGs on average during the year 2021. There are two credit unions that were able to add many more groups than the rest: Live Life (Fraser, MI), which added 89 groups, and Financial Access (Bradenton, FL), which added 56 groups.
Adding Members
The middle 50% of the resulting field of membership expansions from these SEG additions ranged between 18 and 473 members. AFL CIO Employees (Washington, DC) stood out from the pack by expanding their potential members by over 1.9 million over the course of 2021.
Taking the number and size of SEGs into consideration, these are the top 10 "small" credit unions achieving exceptional FOM potential:
| Name | Headquarters | Average Assets | # of Groups | # of Members |
| AFL CIO Employees | Washington, DC | $53,823,978 | 4 | 1,902,050 |
| Capital Area Realtors | Rockville, MD | $22,530,591 | 1 | 3,700 |
| Financial Access | Bradenton, FL | $37,780,158 | 56 | 617 |
| IBEW 26 | Lanham, MD | $31,799,027 | 2 | 3,778 |
| Israel Methcomm | Chicago, IL | $1,472,254 | 5 | 2,525 |
| Lan-Fair | Lancaster, OH | $66,595,680 | 2 | 5,134 |
| Live Life | Fraser, MI | $7,422,0378 | 89 | 1,102 |
| N.J. Latvian | Freehold, NJ | $8,940,072 | 2 | 5,090 |
| St. Thomas | Charlotte Amalie, VI | $79,698,263 | 12 | 487 |
| Wakefern | Elizabeth, NJ | $12,830,427 | 1 | 8,000 |
Mid-Size Credit Unions ($100M-$1B)
Adding Groups
Credit unions with between $100 million and $1 billion in assets averaged one to 15 additions during the year 2021. Two credit unions of this size were able to add more than 200 groups: First Commonwealth (Lehigh Valley, PA), which added 264 groups, and GFA (Gardner, MA), which added an incredible 790 groups to their field of membership.
Adding Members
On average, mid-size credit unions added between 83 and 1,748 members in total for 2021. There are two credit unions of this size that were able to add more than 300,000 potential members during this time and they are Fortera (Clarksville, TN), which added 306,532 potential members, and True Sky (Oklahoma City, OK), which added 338,500 potential members.
Taking the number and size of SEGs into consideration, these are the top 10 "mid-size" credit unions achieving exceptional FOM potential:
| Name | Headquarters | Average Assets | # of Groups | # of Members |
| AOD | Bynum, AL | $416,638,502 | 155 | 971 |
| Bayer Heritage | Proctor, WV | $614,032,168 | 11 | 285,368 |
| First Commonwealth | Lehigh Valley, PA | $987,883,846 | 264 | 290,977 |
| Fortera | Clarksville, TN | $709,509,599 | 3 | 306,532 |
| GFA | Gardner, MA | $652,878,662 | 790 | 12,660 |
| Great River | Saint Cloud, MN | $243,731,032 | 40 | 294,356 |
| Inova | Elkhart, IN | $549,611,872 | 101 | 634 |
| Magnolia | Jackson, MS | $161,590,894 | 3 | 100,300 |
| Service 1st | Danville, PA | $580,626,322 | 120 | 1,822 |
| True Sky | Oklahoma City, OK | $843,605,531 | 2 | 338,500 |
Large Credit Unions ($1B+)
Adding Groups
Credit unions with greater than $1 billion in assets added three to 57 SEGs on average during 2021. One credit union did particularly well at adding groups and that was Empower (Syracuse, NY), which added 1,187 groups throughout the year.
Adding Members
The average number of potential members added by large credit unions ranged from 421 to 13,087 members. There were actually four credit unions that were able to expand their fields of membership by over 300,000 members, but the one that expanded the most was Truliant (Winston-Salem, NC), with 336,078 potential members.
Taking the number and size of SEGs into consideration, these are the top 10 "large" credit unions achieving exceptional FOM potential:
| Name | Headquarters | Average Assets | # of Groups | # of Members |
| Blue | Cheyenne, WY | $1,538,560,567 | 34 | 313,608 |
| Credit Human | San Antonio, TX | $3,609,963,871 | 13 | 320,785 |
| Empower | Syracuse, NY | $2,732,655,701 | 1187 | 17,783 |
| Evansville Teachers | Evansville, IN | $2,696,590,211 | 696 | 4,596 |
| Franklin Mint | Chadds Ford, PA | $1,557,665,846 | 317 | 41,445 |
| HawaiiUSA | Honolulu, HI | $2,260,939,703 | 480 | 5,093 |
| Members 1st | Mechanicsburg, PA | $6,181,030,838 | 869 | 54,489 |
| Randolph-Brooks | Universal City, TX | $14,079,550,114 | 260 | 123,467 |
| Three Rivers | Fort Wayne, IN | $1,882,740,407 | 76 | 317,671 |
| Truliant | Winston-Salem, NC | $3,614,160,363 | 8 | 336,078 |
Expanding YOUR Field of Membership
CUCollaborate specializes in expanding fields of membership for credit unions. By streamlining the writing of SEG Applications through automation, as well as our groundbreaking, geo-mapping software, the process has never been easier!
Contact us today to learn more about our select employee group consulting services and see how adding SEGs could help your credit union grow.
