Quality of Credit Union Annual Reports Varies Greatly

There is a lot of variability in the quality of annual reports issued by larger credit unions.

Some credit unions provide detailed financial information to their members in their annual reports. which includes audited financial information. Some of the better annual reports that I have reviewed have been issued by Quorum FCU, Pentagon FCU, Navy FCU, State Employees' CU, and University of Wisconsin CU.

However, other credit unions provide their members with very little information about their financial performance in their annual reports.

For example, Truliant FCU (Winston-Salem, NC) in its 2014 annual report only discloses summary balance sheet information. There is not any information from the income statement or statement of cash flows. The credit union does not provide any notes that elaborate further on the credit union's financial performance.

Another disappointing 2014 annual report is from University Federal Credit Union (Austin, TX). But it provides a little more information than Truliant FCU.

The same is true for Richmond, Virginia-based Virginia Credit Union's 2014 annual report.

If credit unions truly believe their members are owners, they should be making their audited financial statements available to their members on their websites.