Representative organization, leading the coordination work in the field of development of both global and national credit union movement is the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) established in 1971 (headquartered in Madison, USA). The economic basis of credit unions - finances of a household. The main objective of the credit union - to ensure financial stability of a household, to ensure the priority of their shareholders' financial interests. The uniqueness of credit unions is that they put together the principles and benefits of financial cooperatives, consumer cooperatives and mutual aid funds, born once by trade unions. The relationship of shareholders with credit union are not client-based, they are co-operative, based on different principles and standards, in particular, on the principles of the law of obligations. 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 are competitors of savings institutions, adding interest on deposits of members. This applies to the shares, as well as to additional funds transferred to the account in the credit union. 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.