By Anca Voinea
The global credit union movement has passed the 400 million member mark, the latest figures from the World Council of Credit Unions (Woccu) reveal.
The trade body’s statistical report for 2022 shows that membership has risen 3% from 2021. In December 2022, there were 403,976,049 credit union members in 98 countries. The countries that witnessed high membership growth were, Brazil (+25%), the Philippines (+19%) and Ireland (+17%).
Global credit union membership doubled between 2013 and 2022, with Asia in the lead for membership growth. Credit union membership on the continent increasing by more than 250%. Latin America and Africa also witnessed significant increases, with credit union membership more than doubling during the decade, while European membership remained relatively flat.
Global credit union assets also doubled over the last decade, from US$1.7tn to $3.6tn and gained 3% year-to-year. In Asia, credit union assets more than tripled over the 10-year period.
“What we see is that growth in countries with well-established credit union and cooperative movements continues to accelerate at a much faster rate than anywhere else,” said Thomas Belekevich, Woccu’s director of member services. “World Council of Credit Unions will continue to work to improve conditions for the credit union sectors in those countries with the greatest potential to grow our movement to more than 500 million members over the next decade.”
The report is based on country responses to Woccu’s annual survey. The 2022 edition omitted 22 countries that had been featured in past reports, due to them not submitting new credit union sector data within the last two years.