In the U.S., credit unions have a clear organizational structure. All credit unions belong to one or the other parent credit union (there are 35 of them in the U.S.). 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. 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.