Membership in the credit union is voluntary and is open to all citizens bound by with joint work or residence, who wished to create a credit union to use its services and are willing to take on relevant commitments and responsibilities. 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.). To get a loan in the credit union a shareholder must be not only a formally adopted there, but necessary pay in cash contributions, the amount and order of payment of which approved by the General Assembly and fixed by the charter. Most modern credit unions represent specialized consumer cooperatives of citizens associated by the principle of social community: place of work, place of residence, profession, or any other shared interest. Credit unions also differ from the traditional consumer cooperatives. 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. A potential new member of a credit union must submit a recommendation of shareholders in which the referee becomes a warrant of a future member of the credit union. National Credit Union Insurance Fund was created by Congress in 1970 to insure deposits of credit union members in the amount of 100 thousand dollars. 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. 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.