Principles of cooperative democracy and interaction were adequate to the purposes for which people joined credit unions. Until the mid-XX century, credit unions in the United States had little assets that did not exceed, as a rule, 100 thousand dollars The value of credit unions is not limited to the role of the economic agent - they are an important element of the social structure and a factor of social stability and progress. The specifics of credit unions and, in some sense, their uniqueness lies in the fact that they work not for profit and do not appropriate profit.