Credit Unions

Credit unions are non-profit, tax exempt financial institutions owned by their depositors. About 70 million Americans are members of some 11,500 credit unions. Most are very small. Sixty percent have assets below $10 million and nearly one third have assetes below $2 million. On the other hand, the largest credit union---Navy Federal--has $10 billion in assets.

Credit unions began by providing small personal loans and savings accounts and have recently expanded into checking accounts, financial services, and business loans. In the early 1980s the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) altered the existing requirement that credit union members must share a single "common bond"(e.g. geographic area, business, church, labor union, public agency) and allowed for multiple common bonds. In 1998 the Supreme Court overturned this change and that same year Congress passed the Credit Union Membership Access Act(CUMAA), which charged the NCUA with developing new rules for membership.