Specialization of credit unions to provide financial services to its shareholders requires a particularly strict regulation of membership and acceptable activities. The main advantage of credit unions consists in transparency, controllability, governance for shareholders. In the credit union compensation for use of the loan (interest) is a source of compensation for savings. Contributions from of shareholders in credit unions in no way can be considered as borrowed funds, they come from the shareholders and for the shareholders and can not be used to provide services to third parties. 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.