Borrowing rate for the credit union is a source of income to cover the administrative costs. All excess funds are returned to members in the form of dividends on savings. Typically new members of the credit union become citizens having suretyship or recommendations from their friends - members of the credit union. The main advantage of credit unions consists in transparency, controllability, governance for shareholders. Over 30% of the assets of credit unions are investments in government securities, certificates of deposit of banks and savings loan associations, as well as in the parent credit unions, and other risk-free investments. 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. 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. Credit unions are financial institutions, financial cooperatives of citizens, and in this capacity they are above all associations of people, not unification of capitals, which is typical, for example, for public companies.