How Credit Union CECL Reserves Vary (And Why It Matters)
We pulled the March 31, 2026, call reports for every credit union between $500M and $10B in assets. 734 of them.
The median allowance is 0.96% of loans. The bottom 10% are under 0.45%. The top 10% are over 1.74%.
Portfolios differ, so we sorted them into five groups by delinquency and looked at the middle group, about 0.6% of loans 60+ days past due. Reserves in that group ran from 0.59% to 1.59% of loans. Similar delinquency, and one end of that group holds more than two and a half times the reserve of the other. It isn’t a size effect either. Cut the population down to $500M to $1.5B and the spread doesn’t shrink.
Across all 734, delinquency explains less than half the variation in reserve levels. 21% hold an allowance smaller than their delinquent balances. 18% had delinquency rise over the past year while coverage fell.
None of that is automatically wrong. There are at least three good reasons your reserve differs from a similar portfolio: mix and credit quality past what delinquency shows, geography through your reasonable and supportable forecast, and your own loss history.
The question we’d ask isn’t whether your number is right. It’s whether the person who owns your model could walk an examiner through the method and every qualitative adjustment without you in the room.
If the answer is no, contact us. We can run alongside your current process so you can see the difference, or we can handle the ongoing modeling for you.
