For many credit unions, the answer is often unclear. How do you measure whether your lending products truly meet the needs of your members? While this is a complex question, two powerful metrics can provide valuable insight into overall lending performance:
Share of wallet – What percentage of a member’s loan products are held at your credit union?
Member benefit – In what percentage of cases would your members be better served by a credit union product?
In this article, we’ll explore data from over 9,000 applicants across 17+ credit unions representing 2.5 million members to evaluate both metrics. The findings reveal opportunities for credit unions to capture more lending volume and deliver greater member value.
Measuring Share of Wallet in Credit Union Lending
When analyzing debt categories, we see nearly all members hold a credit card or auto loan, while roughly one-third also carry a mortgage, student loan, or unsecured personal loan.
Looking deeper at average debt per member, the picture changes dramatically. The average credit union member carries $139,000 in total debt, with significant variation by product type. For example, mortgage balances are highly dependent on geography (California members typically carry much higher balances than those in Kansas).
When we measure credit union share of wallet, the results highlight missed opportunities:
Auto loans show the highest capture rate, averaging just 21.8% of member balances.
Unsecured loans and credit cards represent even lower penetration rates.
This raises an important question: Why are members not using their credit union for more of their borrowing needs?
Identifying Missed Opportunities: When Members Could Save with Credit Union Loans
There are many reasons credit unions may not capture all of a member’s debt—low credit scores, prior delinquencies, or competitive offers such as 0% APR auto loans. But how often are members actually paying more than necessary?
Using soft-pull credit data and decisioning models from a 100k+ member credit union, we analyzed loan opportunities for members with FICO scores above 640 (the typical credit union lending threshold). The results were eye-opening:
Auto loans:
45.5% of members would save money by refinancing with a credit union.
Even at savings of 3% APR or greater, 22% of members would benefit.
Capturing these opportunities could triple auto loan share of wallet.
Personal loans:
32% of members with FICO >640 would save by switching.
More than 10.7% would save over 9.75% APR.
This could quadruple credit union share of wallet in personal lending.
These findings confirm that credit unions aren’t just missing balances—they’re missing opportunities to deliver real financial value to their members.
What This Means for Your Credit Union
The data makes one thing clear: credit unions have ample opportunity to grow lending within their existing membership. The key is to answer two strategic questions:
Why is my credit union losing loan volume in the first place?
How can we recapture debt members already hold elsewhere?
In future content, we’ll dive into strategies and digital tools that help credit unions both prevent attrition and win back existing member debt.
Key Takeaway
Credit unions already have the trust and relationships to serve members better. By analyzing share of wallet and identifying where members can save, you can uncover high-impact opportunities to grow lending and strengthen member loyalty.
📩 Interested in learning more? Request a demo to discuss how digitized lending experiences can help your credit union capture more loans and deliver greater value to your members.
