Membership in the credit union is voluntary and is open to all citizens bound by with joint work or residence, who wished to create a credit union to use its services and are willing to take on relevant commitments and responsibilities. Most modern credit unions represent specialized consumer cooperatives of citizens associated by the principle of social community: place of work, place of residence, profession, or any other shared interest. Principles of cooperative democracy and interaction were adequate to the purposes for which people joined credit unions. U.S. credit unions have another significant difference from the credit cooperatives of farmers: the first have major proportion of short-term loans, the second - long and mostly in real estate. Corporate alliances are intermediaries between credit unions and financial markets.