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. Today in the UK there are about 700 credit unions with assets exceeding 200 million pounds. Principles of cooperative democracy and interaction were adequate to the purposes for which people joined credit unions. Specialization of credit unions to provide financial services to its shareholders requires a particularly strict regulation of membership and acceptable activities. Credit union promotes the effective conservation of personal funds of its members, giving them the loans from the funds of the credit union, as well as the sharing of savings in education, housing, health care and other programs of social support and social development of its members. Taking a decision to join a credit union, citizens create an organization through which they participate in the shared savings by mutual crediting and joint (collective) use of personal savings. Standards by which credit unions build their work do not coincide with the standards and regulations of consumer cooperation of the usual type. The right to use the services of the credit union have only its members. 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.