Credit unions encourage savings of citizens, setting compensation payments (interest) on savings and provide from these savings loans to their members. Specialization of credit unions to provide financial services to its shareholders requires a particularly strict regulation of membership and acceptable activities. Credit unions are competitors of savings institutions, adding interest on deposits of members. This applies to the shares, as well as to additional funds transferred to the account in the credit union. Initially, the target groups of credit unions were farmers (Raiffeisen), and now they include both individuals (credit unions), and organizations. Shareholders in corporate organizations are basic credit unions, besides the same union can be a shareholder of several corporate organizations. Today, the World Council of Credit Unions is represented as members four regional confederations and twelve national associations. Corporate alliances are intermediaries between credit unions and financial markets.