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). Specialization of credit unions to provide financial services to its shareholders requires a particularly strict regulation of membership and acceptable activities. Credit unions perform the function of social protection in a vital for people sphere of financial services. They care about improving the financial literacy of the population, are working on the formation of their members and their employees. The main advantage of credit unions consists in transparency, controllability, governance for shareholders. Membership in the credit union forms responsible citizens and conscientious attitude to their obligations as a norm of behavior, identify the value of a decent man's reputation in the business turnover. 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. 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. 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. Corporate alliances are intermediaries between credit unions and financial markets.