Corporate credit unions are united on a cooperative basis in the Central Credit Union (US Central Credit Union). Principles of cooperative democracy and interaction were adequate to the purposes for which people joined credit unions. Specialization of credit unions to provide financial services to its shareholders requires a particularly strict regulation of membership and acceptable activities. In the U.S. credit unions timely and full repayment of loans is a common phenomenon. Unpaid and delinquent loans are not more than 3% of their amount. Credit unions appeared in England in the 19th century. In 1844 a group of workers from Rochdale established the first cooperative. Historically, credit unions have grown from the experience of credit cooperatives, but they took the experience of organizations of mutual aid of citizens by moving methods of social self-protection from labor and toward consumption. The supreme body of the World Council of Credit Unions is the Assembly, which elects the president and the board of directors of WOCCU. Credit cooperatives and credit unions exist in many different forms. The main differences relate to the nature of the membership and the opening of a credit institution. On the consumer credit market in the U.S. credit unions are on the third place after the commercial banks and finance companies and are ahead of savings institutions, not taking into account the loans on real estate. To increase the number of credit unions in 1979 was adopted the corresponding law that serves as the legal basis of their activity.