Spokane Teachers Credit Union, of Liberty Lake, has reported 2012 net income of $21.8 million, up 14 percent compared with income of $19.1 million in 2011.

Bill Before, STCU's chief financial officer, says a $1.6 million decrease in the credit union's provisions for loan losses last year contributed to improved results, as did a reduction in its premiums for its National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund.

Those gains helped to offset a loss in interest income, which was down 2 percent.

"We're still in that pinch of the declining rate scenario," Before says.

STCU reported $1.7 billion in total assets as of Dec. 31, 2012, up 7 percent from a year earlier. Net loans increased at the same 7 percent pace, to $1.34 billion from $1.26 billion.

Loan growth included a 28 percent increase in net auto loans, which increased to $310.4 million on Dec. 31 from $243.1 million a year earlier.

The credit union's real estate loan portfolio remained essentially flat at about $567.7 million, rising less than a percentage point, Before says, largely because it sold about $36.3 million more real estate loans to the secondary mortgage market last year than it had sold in 2011.

Total deposits, referred by credit unions as total shares, rose to $1.4 billion, as of Dec. 31, a 7 percent increase compared with a year earlier.

Total membership grew by almost 13 percent, to a total of about 113,400 members at the end of 2012 from about 100,500 a year earlier. Before says that growth rate outpaces the organization's average annual growth of about 8 percent during the past decade.