Credit unions encourage savings of citizens, setting compensation payments (interest) on savings and provide from these savings loans to their members. Income received by the credit union shall be distributed among the shareholders or spent for the depreciation of services, that is, are the most effective means of meeting the needs of shareholders. Cooperation between credit unions, how they would not have been named, took place always, from the moment when the movement moved outside one credit union. As of the January 1, 2012 the national associations and confederations unite more than 196 million members participating in the 51,013 credit unions in 100 countries. Credit unions historically formed as a special form of social support, initially taken upon themselves the social mission of protecting the interests of citizens in the field of financial services.