Washington credit unions added 104,000 new members last year, while Oregon’s credit unions grew by 20,000 members, the Northwest Credit Union Association reported Tuesday. Those increases brought total membership in the two states to 4.2 million, or about 9 percent of the nation’s total credit union membership, it said.
Much of the growth came during the year’s fourth quarter,and the association said that Bank of America’s announcement that it would implement a new $5 monthly debit card fee triggered a surge in new credit union memberships. The bank quickly backed down from that fee.
