In recent decades, many credit unions began to resort to such form of service as Since the early 80's started the process of consolidation of credit unions, leading to a decrease in their number with a simultaneous increase in the total number of members. 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. The specifics of credit unions and, in some sense, their uniqueness lies in the fact that they work not for profit and do not appropriate profit.