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.). Today in the UK there are about 700 credit unions with assets exceeding 200 million pounds. In recent decades, many credit unions began to resort to such form of service as Credit unions also differ from the traditional consumer cooperatives. Members of credit unions place in credit unions usually free fund balances, ie those that remain after expenses devoted to education of children, the acquisition of new properties, additional pension benefits, etc. Income derived from the provision of services to its members, does not become the profit of credit union and is distributed among its members in proportion to their savings. Credit unions, like today's credit unions, emerged in the 19th century in Germany as a result of crop failure and famine.