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 relationship of shareholders with credit union are not client-based, they are co-operative, based on different principles and standards, in particular, on the principles of the law of obligations. International cooperation has been particularly felt since the days when Alphonse Desjardins began the activity on development of credit union movement in North America. 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. In some cases, the initiators of credit unions can be trade unions, associations such as social support centers and others.