Specialization of credit unions to provide financial services to its shareholders requires a particularly strict regulation of membership and acceptable activities. When organizing the credit union it is important that people know each other and know the extent to which each of them is trustworthy. National Credit Union Insurance Fund was created by Congress in 1970 to insure deposits of credit union members in the amount of 100 thousand dollars. Credit unions appeared in England in the 19th century. In 1844 a group of workers from Rochdale established the first cooperative. 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, like today's credit unions, emerged in the 19th century in Germany as a result of crop failure and famine. Standards by which credit unions build their work do not coincide with the standards and regulations of consumer cooperation of the usual type. Credit unions historically formed as a special form of social support, initially taken upon themselves the social mission of protecting the interests of citizens in the field of financial services. Unlike banks credit unions limit their activities to a closed circle of people.