In the U.S., credit unions have a clear organizational structure. All credit unions belong to one or the other parent credit union (there are 35 of them in the U.S.). In recent decades, many credit unions began to resort to such form of service as The uniqueness of credit unions is that they put together the principles and benefits of financial cooperatives, consumer cooperatives and mutual aid funds, born once by trade unions. Since the early 80's started the process of consolidation of credit unions, leading to a decrease in their number with a simultaneous increase in the total number of members. Corporate alliances are intermediaries between credit unions and financial markets.