Thursday, March 11, 2021
As part of a long-term trend of credit union consolidation and expansion, an increasing number of banks and savings associations have been acquired by credit unions over the past 10 years. Most of the banks and thrifts acquired by credit unions have been small, with total assets of around $300 million or less, and the great majority of such transactions in the past five years have involved bank targets with assets of between $100 million and $300 million. The number of such transactions peaked at 16 in 2019 before falling (with all other financial institution merger activity) in 2020; however, many analysts and the financial press expect that larger credit unions will continue to be expansionary and that the pace of credit union-bank deals may well accelerate in 2021 and 2022.