First mortgages, used car loans and credit cards were responsible for most of the lending gains among credit unions in July.

New car loan balances continued to decline.

The Fed’s Consumer Credit Report released Wednesday showed credit unions held $61.5 billion in credit card debt July 31, up 1% from a year earlier — the first 12-month gain since April 2020.

Balances rose 0.9% from June to July, compared with an average June-to-July gain of 1.2% from 2015 to 2019.

Recovery from pre-pandemic levels was slow. Card balances were still 6.5% below February 2020 levels at credit unions — unchanged from June. Balances at banks were 9.1% below February 2020, an improvement from June’s 9.5% deficit.

Credit unions held 6.4% of the nation’s credit card debt as of July 31, unchanged from a month or a year earlier.

Banks held $860.3 billion in credit card debt July 31, up 0.9% from a year earlier and up 0.5% from a month earlier. Their share was 90% in July, unchanged from June and up from 89.7% in July 2020.

CUNA’s Monthly Credit Union Estimates released Sept. 3 showed credit unions held $1.23 trillion in loans as of July 31, up 4.8% from a year earlier. The 0.8% gain from June was only slightly behind the pre-pandemic average of 0.9%.

New car loans fell 2.1% to $140.6 billion, while used car loans grew 6.4% to $254.1 billion.

From June to July, new car loan balances fell 0.1%, while used car balances rose 0.8%. The pre-pandemic average was 1% for both.

First mortgages grew 8% to $548.9 billion. A year earlier, from July 2019 to July 2020, it rose 13.4%. Second-lien mortgages fell 6.1% to $85.1 billion. A year earlier, it fell 2.4%.

The 60-day-plus delinquency rate was 0.44% as of July 31, unchanged from June and down from 0.54% in July 2020.

• The nation’s 5,218 credit unions had 129.4 million members in July, up 3.3% from a year earlier. Other balances and 12-month changes in the report included:
• Loans per member grew 1.5% to $9,532. A year earlier, from July 2019 to July 2020, they rose 3.7%.
• Assets grew 13.7% to $2.05 trillion. A year earlier, they rose 17%.
• Fixed-rate first mortgages rose 12.5% to $431.7 billion.
• Adjustable-rate first mortgages fell 6.1% to $117.2 billion.
• Second mortgages fell 10.2% to $29.6 billion.
• Home equity lines of credit fell 3.7% to $55.5 billion.
• Savings grew 14.8% to $1.77 trillion, compared with an 18.5% gain a year earlier.
• Savings per member grew 11.1% to $13,656, compared with a 14.7% gain a year earlier.