A comparison of bank and credit union growth around the financial crisis

Purpose - The purpose of this research is to examine the growth rates of commercial banks and credit unions around the financial crisis and recovery. Credit unions are analyzed as a group and by field of membership. Specifically, this research analyzes the growth rates of assets, deposits, and loans. Design/methodology/approach - This research employs univariate tests of differences to examine the median growth rates for commercial banks and credit unions. Unbalanced pool regressions analyze growth rates during the pre-crisis, crisis, and recovery periods, controlling for size, net charge-offs, and unemployment. Findings - Univariate test results that control for size show that banks grow at faster rates than credit unions for most of the pre-crisis years. However, medium sized credit unions grow at faster rates for most of the crisis and recovery years. Results of unbalanced pool regressions suggest that, overall, credit unions grow at slower rates than do banks. However, during the crisis and recovery, credit union growth is significantly greater than that of banks, after controlling for net charge-offs, size, and unemployment. Credit union growth varies by field of membership type. Originality/value - Although a large volume of research examines commercial bank performance around the financial crisis, only a few papers assess the performance of credit unions. And very few papers compare commercial banks and credit unions. This paper explores how the recent financial crisis influenced the growth of commercial banks and credit unions from 2005 to 2013.