National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) - an independent federal agency, based in Washington (State of Columbia), established by the U.S. Congress to oversee the federal credit union system. The first credit union in the United States was founded in 1909. by the group of Franco-American Catholics in Manchester, New Hampshire, and was called "Cooperative Credit Association of St. Mary. " In recent decades, many credit unions began to resort to such form of service as The difference between credit unions and banks is clearly is apparent when comparing the structure of assets and liabilities of credit unions and banks. Credit unions perform the function of social protection in a vital for people sphere of financial services. They care about improving the financial literacy of the population, are working on the formation of their members and their employees. The main advantage of credit unions consists in transparency, controllability, governance for shareholders. 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. Until the mid-XX century, credit unions in the United States had little assets that did not exceed, as a rule, 100 thousand dollars Credit unions appeared in England in the 19th century. In 1844 a group of workers from Rochdale established the first cooperative. A credit union on its own initiative order is created by citizens (individuals) to solve their financial problems that they could not solve in other financial institutions.