Credit cards have continued to remain popular over the years, but there are signs that their popularity may be waning. According to PULSE’s 2021 Issuer Study, while debit card transactions were slightly down, total debit spending grew 8% year-over-year. Much of that growth is due to the ticket sizes of these transactions, which increased from […]
Credit Unions See Q2 Mortgage Growth And Setbacks
The second quarter of 2021 saw credit unions gain more footing in the mortgage market, but overall growth remains minimal. According to the most recent CUNA Mutual Credit Union Trends Report, fixed-rate first mortgage loan balances grew 1.8% in June, faster than 1.3% reported in June 2020. Additionally, credit unions, as of June of this […]
Wells Fargo Shut Down Opens New Opportunity For Credit Unions
Wells Fargo recently announced that it’s shutting down all existing personal lines of credit in the coming weeks and has stopped offering new lines of personal credit. This particular product was very popular with the bank’s customers, and this shutdown has, not surprisingly, angered a lot of them. What makes this cancellation all the more […]
Credit Union Mortgage Shares Show Promise And Concern
So far this year, the housing market has been strong despite limited inventory and rising prices. However, credit unions may not be seeing as much of that success as they would like. The latest NCUA and MBA data, as reported by Credit Union Times, showed that in Q1, credit unions’ share of first mortgages totaled $74.5 […]
Mortgages Drove Credit Union Loan Originations in Q1
The numbers for Q1 2021 have come in, and overall, credit unions saw strong growth in their loan portfolios! Credit Union Times reported in May that first-mortgage originations were the driving force for the loan growth this past quarter with a grand total of $75 billion, up 49% from Q1 2020. While these numbers are promising, the […]
Are Americans, And Their Wallets, Ready For Summer Vacation?
Summer is upon us, and many Americans are ready to get outside and do the things they were not able to do last year during the pandemic. According to a report from CNBC, nearly 70% of Airbnb searches for Memorial Day weekend 2021 are for off-the-beaten-path locations that are 50-300 miles from travelers’ homes. However, travel […]
First Time Homebuyers: Optimistic, But Struggling
As we near the end of spring, more Americans are becoming enthusiastic about buying a new home. First time homebuyers still have a few difficult hurdles to jump over in order to reach their goal of purchasing their dream home. A survey conducted earlier this year by NerdWallet found that 38% of respondents did not […]
Homeownership and Savings Struggles, But There’s New Hope
As we’ve passed the one-year mark into this global pandemic, we are now beginning to see the full scope of the damage it has done financially. According to a survey conducted by Real Estate Witch, 43% of respondents currently don’t have any emergency savings. As for those who do still have some savings stashed away, a […]
Home Buying in 2021
The official start of spring is right around the corner, and with warmer temperatures comes the ideal time of year to start shopping for a new home! However, the coronavirus pandemic that began one year ago is still going on, and that’s going to have a significant impact on how this year’s home buying season […]
Slow and Steady Auto Loan Growth And Improving Quality
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, auto loan growth is making a comeback. In a recent Callahan and Associates analysis reported in Credit Union Times, compared with the third quarter of 2019, total auto lending grew 1.2%, or $4.5 billion, to $382.7 billion outstanding. As the economy reopened in the third quarter of 2020, growth has begun to […]