The National Credit Union Administration Thursday released its comprehensive industry data for the first quarter of 2025, and the theme of the first three months might well be slow, steady growth.

Perhaps most notably, total loans outstanding increased $53 billion, or 3.3% over the year, to $1.65 trillion.

Additionally, total assets in federally insured credit unions rose by $60 billion, or 2.6% over the year ending in the first quarter of 2025, to $2.37 trillion.

On the flip side, the delinquency rate at federally insured credit unions was 80 basis points in the first quarter, up 2 basis points from a year earlier. The net charge-off ratio was 82 basis points, also up 2 basis points compared with the first quarter of 2024.

As a result, the provision for loan and lease losses or credit loss expense increased $0.5 billion, or 3.8% to $13.1 billion at an annual rate through the first quarter of 2025.

Perhaps more troubling, much of the industry’s loan and membership growth continues to come at the top end of the asset spectrum.

While credit unions with assets of at least $1 billion but less than $10 billion saw loan growth of 5.6% and membership growth of 4.5% over the year, the smallest credit unions – those with less than $10 million of assets – experienced a 12.4% decrease in loans, and membership declined 7.8%.

So while Navy Federal, the world’s largest credit union, now boasts more than 14.5 million members after a 7% increase during the year, the $3.4 million-asset BASF Chattanooga FCU saw membership increase by just 24 over the year to 462.

In total, U.S. credit unions had 143.2 million members after they added 2.9 million members during the past four quarters.

As of March 31, there were 4,411 federally insured credit unions, down from 4,572 in the first quarter of 2024.