The Size Divide — Q3 2025
The Profitability–Risk Inversion
CAMELS Metrics by Asset-Size Cohort, Q3 2025 (income ratios annualized)
| Cohort | CUs | Total Assets | ROAA | NIM | Delinq. (60+) | NCO Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $100M | 2,553 | $76.1B | 0.84% | 3.77% | 1.03% | 0.46% |
| $100M–$500M | 1,042 | $240.2B | 0.77% | 3.54% | 0.85% | 0.48% |
| $500M–$1B | 277 | $198.4B | 0.68% | 3.40% | 0.83% | 0.56% |
| $1B–$10B | 438 | $1,280.0B | 0.81% | 3.13% | 0.78% | 0.60% |
| Over $10B | 21 | $603.0B | 0.84% | 3.60% | 1.36% | 1.28% |
The over-$10B tier returned 0.84% on assets, level with the under-$100M tier for the highest in the table, while charging off 1.28% of loans, nearly three times the smallest tier's rate. On our reading, the largest credit unions run a high-yield, high-loss book whose margin absorbs the losses and still leaves a return at the top of the table.
Source: NCUA Call Report, Q3 2025 · release v2026.2.27 · QuarterCall
Portfolio Mix
We read the inversion as portfolio mix. That is a hypothesis, and on this report's figures it is unresolved, since the report shows no loan-mix figure. On that account the largest credit unions are the most concentrated in consumer credit, indirect auto and credit cards, which carries the highest yields and, in this part of the cycle, the fastest-rising losses. The over-$10B tier's figures fit it: the yield shows in a net interest margin of 3.60%, the second-highest, and in its return on assets, and the losses in a 1.28% charge-off rate and a 1.36% delinquency rate. Further down the ladder, the $1B–$10B cohort runs the lowest delinquency in the system (0.78%) and earns 0.81%; on the same account, its book is less weighted to consumer credit.
Source: NCUA Call Report, Q3 2025 · release v2026.2.27 · QuarterCall
Size does not order the table. Credit unions under $100 million carry the system's second-highest delinquency (1.03%), yet their charge-offs are the lowest of any cohort (0.46%), and they earn 0.84%, level with the largest tier, on a wide 3.77% margin. Their constraint, on our reading, is scale rather than credit quality, which The Cohort Earnings Divergence takes further. The lowest return in the table is the $500M–$1B tier's, at 0.68%, which we read as a tier caught between the small credit unions' margins and the large ones' costs; the report measures no operating cost.
Concentration Risk
A 1.36% delinquency rate at a $40 million credit union is a local problem. Across the 21 institutions above $10 billion, the largest in the system, it is a concentration problem for the Share Insurance Fund, whose exposure grows with an institution's size. We read the cohort carrying the most credit risk as the one whose losses, institution for institution, would cost the fund the most; the report infers that exposure from asset size and measures no fund loss. The NCUA board raised the same concern when it flagged the rise in large, low-rated credit unions (see the September 2025 Board Digest).
Connecting the Lines
The system's 60+ day delinquency reached 0.95% in Q3 2025, just short of 1%, and the over-$10B cohort, with the highest rate of any tier, raises that average (see System Signals — Q3 2025). We read the size divide as the largest credit unions carrying a profitable, credit-heavy model into a normalizing cycle, with the fund's exposure riding along.
- Each tier's figure is the tier's aggregate; a credit union inside a tier can differ widely from it.
- Return on assets, net interest margin and the charge-off rate are annualized, not full-year results.
- The report reads the over-$10B tier's results as its consumer-credit mix; it shows no loan-mix figure to test that.
- The Share Insurance Fund's exposure is inferred from the tiers' asset sizes; no fund loss is measured.