Like any financial institution, credit unions have the financial resources. In recent decades, many credit unions began to resort to such form of service as Typically new members of the credit union become citizens having suretyship or recommendations from their friends - members of the credit union. 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. 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.