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. 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. 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. Unlike banks credit unions limit their activities to a closed circle of people. 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.
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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. Unlike banks credit unions limit their activities to a closed circle of people. 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.
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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). Credit unions encourage savings of citizens, setting compensation payments (interest) on savings and provide from these savings loans to their members. 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. Share contributions are transferred to the credit union on the basis of membership for the whole stay of a shareholder as member of the credit union and are the basis of membership. 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. Credit unions are financial institutions, financial cooperatives of citizens, and in this capacity they are above all associations of people, not unification of capitals, which is typical, for example, for public companies. Credit cooperatives and credit unions exist in many different forms. The main differences relate to the nature of the membership and the opening of a credit institution. 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. A credit union on its own initiative order is created by citizens (individuals) to solve their financial problems that they could not solve in other financial institutions.