Main share of credit unions assets is concentrated in loans (about 50%), while the share of consumer loans in commercial banks and finance companies active operations rarely exceeds 15%. The most common type of loans in credit unions are loans to purchase new and used cars (40%), followed by first mortgages and second mortgages (35%), about 10% are unsecured personal loans to member of unions and about 15% - are loans on credit cards and other loans. Some credit unions are closed, serving only their members. However, the more and more popularitywin cooperatives of open type. 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. In the UK, credit unions are a source of financing of people groups. This tool is not widely used. 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. On the consumer credit market in the U.S. credit unions are on the third place after the commercial banks and finance companies and are ahead of savings institutions, not taking into account the loans on real estate.