In recent decades, many credit unions began to resort to such form of service as Is necessary that all shareholders of the credit union were members of a single community, would know each other well enough to enjoy mutual trust. 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. Income derived from the provision of services to its members, does not become the profit of credit union and is distributed among its members in proportion to their savings. As of the January 1, 2012 the national associations and confederations unite more than 196 million members participating in the 51,013 credit unions in 100 countries. Credit unions appeared in England in the 19th century. In 1844 a group of workers from Rochdale established the first cooperative. 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.