Like any financial institution, credit unions have the financial resources. To date, credit unions - virtually the only form of financial institution where people can quickly and without any problems get a relatively inexpensive cash loan. Principles of cooperative democracy and interaction were adequate to the purposes for which people joined credit unions. 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. Credit unions are financial institutions, financial cooperatives of citizens, and in this capacity they are above all associations of people, not unification of capitals, which is typical, for example, for public companies.