A credit union is a member-owned financial cooperative, democratically controlled by its members, and operated for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing credit at competitive rates, and providing other financial services to its members.
Many credit unions also provide services intended to support community development or sustainable international development on a local level, and could be considered community development financial institutions.
Worldwide, credit union systems vary significantly in terms of total system assets and average institution asset size, ranging from volunteer operations with a handful of members to institutions with several billion dollars in assets and hundreds of thousands of members.
Read more about Credit Union: Differences From Other Financial Institutions, Field of Membership, Not-for-profit Status, Global Presence, Corporate Credit Unions, Leagues and Associations, History
Famous quotes containing the words credit and/or union:
“To give money to a sufferer is only a come-off. It is only a postponement of the real payment, a bribe paid for silence, a credit system in which a paper promise to pay answers for the time instead of liquidation. We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It would be unjust, and moreover Utopian, for Shakespeare to direct the shoemakers’ union. But it would be equally disastrous for the shoemakers’ union to ignore Shakespeare.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)