Credit union league reports 15% increase in savings to €11bn

Savings in Irish credit unions grew 15 per cent to €11 billion in 2004, figures released yesterday show.

The Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU), the all-island umbrella body to which 531 credit unions are affiliated, said its member institutions now had €11 billion on deposit from 2.9 million savers at the end of 2004.

At the same time, loans to individual members of credit unions totalled €5.6 billion.

The league said that Irish Marketing Surveys research carried out during the year found that credit unions were the country's leading providers of non-mortgage personal loans in the State.

Chief executive Liam O'Dwyer said 40 per cent of Irish adults had credit union savings accounts, while 54 per cent of them had credit union loans.

"That has to be the highest penetration of any credit union movement in the world," Mr O'Dwyer said.

The average loan in the Republic was €7,150, while in Northern Ireland it was €3,500, according to Mr O'Dwyer. Most of the loans were for amounts less than €5,000.

However, the ILCU chief executive pointed out that loan size varies from €200 to €500,000.

The average interest rate paid on credit union loans during 2004 was 8.8 per cent, Mr O'Dwyer said, while savings attracted dividend payments of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent.

Credit unions also have 12 per cent of the State-backed special savings investment accounts (SSIAs), which give a guaranteed 25 per cent return on the savings. These are due to mature between April next year and 2007.

The league's figures show that its insurance activities and affiliation fee collection generated close to €61 million in 2004, compared with €59.5 million the previous year. It had an operating surplus in 2004 of €5.85 million, compared with €8.5 million the previous year, but interest income of €4.8 million brought its total surplus to €10.65 million, as against €14.7 million in 2003.

At the end of 2004, the league had total net assets of €28.75 million, a slight increase on the €24.9 million it reported at the end of 2003.

The league's savings protection scheme, which operates an insurance fund for members' deposits, had total net assets of €85.6 million, compared with €79.7 million in 2003.