PORTLAND , Ore. , Februrary 22, 2006 – AssetExchange, the leading independent credit card portfolio brokerage firm, has analyzed credit union credit card portfolio trends for year end 2005.

For the roughly 2,150 credit unions with credit card portfolios of $1 million and larger:

• Penetration, or the percentage of credit union members that have credit union credit cards, continued to decline, falling from 18.6% in December 2004 to 18.1% in December 2005.
• Total card assets for portfolios over $1 million increased from $22.0 billion in December 2004 to $23.4 billion in December 2005. This represents an annual growth of 2.9% in inflation-adjusted dollars.
• Total card assets for portfolios over $1 million increased slightly as a percentage of total assets, increasing from 4.22% in December 2004 to 4.31% in December 2005.
• The percentage of portfolios that grew more than the rate of inflation during the previous 12 months increased from 46% in December2004 to 50% in December 2005.
• Approximately 19 credit unions with credit card portfolios larger than $1 million sold their portfolios during the fourth quarter of 2005, with a combined dollar volume of roughly $138 million. This brings the total for 2005 to about 70 portfolios sold at a total volume of roughly $470 million. Compared to 2004, this represents a 10% increase in the number of portfolio sales (65 in 2004) and a 1% decrease in dollar volume ($475 million in 2004).

Data provided in this press release is for credit card portfolios larger than $1 million in each time period and are based on NCUA call report data. Inflation values are from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.