Credit unions encourage savings of citizens, setting compensation payments (interest) on savings and provide from these savings loans to their members. Credit union promotes the effective conservation of personal funds of its members, giving them the loans from the funds of the credit union, as well as the sharing of savings in education, housing, health care and other programs of social support and social development of its members. Taking a decision to join a credit union, citizens create an organization through which they participate in the shared savings by mutual crediting and joint (collective) use of personal savings. 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. Credit union as a consumer cooperative operates on the principles of equality of all its members. Corporate alliances are intermediaries between credit unions and financial markets.