Like any financial institution, credit unions have the financial resources. To date, credit unions - virtually the only form of financial institution where people can quickly and without any problems get a relatively inexpensive cash loan. Today in the UK there are about 700 credit unions with assets exceeding 200 million pounds. Specialization of credit unions to provide financial services to its shareholders requires a particularly strict regulation of membership and acceptable activities. Until the 70's there was a proliferation of the U.S. credit unions due to the increase of their number and the number of shareholders, although it must be acknowledged that there was also and a qualitative growth. 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. Standards by which credit unions build their work do not coincide with the standards and regulations of consumer cooperation of the usual type. 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. Unlike banks credit unions limit their activities to a closed circle of people.