Horizon Credit Union reported a 23.5 percent dip in net income for 2008, but posted gains in deposits, loans, and total assets.

The Spokane-based credit union reported 2008 net income of $3.6 million, compared with $4.7 million in 2007.

Jeff Adams, Horizon's CEO, says the drop in income is related primarily to branch expansions spurred by growth at the credit union, which reported that its total deposits grew 10.5 percent in 2008 to $345 million as of year-end. Its total assets rose 10 percent to $397 million, from $361 million in 2007.

The credit union last year invested $2 million to construct a branch in Moses Lake, Wash. It currently is expanding its Bonner Mall branch in Ponderay, Idaho, but doesn't plan any additional branches this year, Adams says.

Horizon's total loans increased 10.3 percent, to $262 million, including an 18 percent increase in real estate loans, which totaled $116.2 million at the end of the year. The credit union increased its allowance for loan losses 2.8 percent, to $1.3 million, in part because it had a relatively low allowance in 2007, but Adams says the delinquency rates on its loans have remained quite low.

"Our delinquency, from 2007 to 2008, went up from 0.31 percent to 0.66 percent," Adams says, adding though, that at 0.30 percent, its loan charge-off rate remained low.

Its return on average assets was 0.95 percent in 2008, compared with 1.36 percent in 2007. Adams says the change was because the credit union's income was down while its assets have grown.

"Because there was a real 'flight to safety,' we grew pretty substantially, in deposits and in loans," Adams says. "In 2009, we might see more effects in the economy here that we didn't see as much last year, but we're positioned well to meet those challenges."

Memberships at Horizon rose 3.2 percent, to 36,400 members, from 35,280 members at the end of 2007.

Horizon, which was chartered in 1948, employs 156 people and operates 19 branch offices, including a student branch it opened last year inside Sandpoint High School, in Sandpoint, Idaho, where it also operates a regular full-service branch, and a freestanding branch it constructed last year in Moses Lake, Wash.

Its other branches are in Spokane, Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Deer Park, Davenport, Colville, and Ephrata, in Washington, and in Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene, and Ponderay, Idaho.