Table of contents
What is a SEG?
Though commonly referred to as Select Employee Groups or SEGs, these groups can share any common bond of association or occupation, not just a single employer. Common types of SEGs include: employees of a company, employees of a government agency, contractors who commonly work for the same company, members of a church, members of a fraternal association, etc.
Who adds SEGs to their field of membership?
Federal multiple common bond credit unions grow their field of membership (FOM) primarily through adding SEGs, though they can also expand using underserved areas. Most state-chartered credit unions also operate by adding SEGs; depending on their specific state regulations they may even be allowed to have SEGs as well as a geographic area within their field of membership. Federal single common bond credit unions can add SEGs too, and in doing so they may become multiple common bond.
What did SEG Additions look like in 2020?
In 2020, there were 7,539 select employee groups added to the fields of membership of 293 federal credit unions. Compared to the 7,265 SEGs that were added by 372 credit unions in 2019, this represents a 3.8% increase in the number of groups added, but a 21.2% decrease in the number of credit unions that were able to add SEGs.
Types of SEGs
Like our previous analysis, analyzing the data we identified three primary types of SEGs in the data: those that are employer based with FOM charters containing phrases like “employees of” or “employed by”; associations with FOM charters containing phrases like “members of”; and schools with FOM charters containing such as “students of."
7,109 groups were employer-based, representing 94.3% of SEGs added. 317 groups were associations, 103 groups were schools, and 10 groups fell into other categories.
Sizes of SEGs
The sizes of SEGs added varied from 1 to 6,639,325 members. 50% of SEGs were of size 5 or less, 75% of SEGs consisted of 25 or less members, and 90% of SEGs had 140 or less members.
Seasonality of SEGs
SEG additions didn’t seem to follow a clear monthly seasonality in the year 2020, although it can be seen that the months with the most additions were February, July, and October.
When you take a closer look at the number of additions occurring each day, a pattern emerges in which many additions took place at the end of each month.
Conclusion
The number of select employee groups added to fields of membership rose in the year 2020, but the number of credit unions that were able to expand via these group additions declined, following the trend we saw in the additions from 2008 to 2019. Further, the majority of these groups were employer-based, had less than 140 members, and were added toward the end of the month.
Field of Membership Expansion
