* 1934 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions.

Credit unions are cooperative financial institutions that are owned and controlled by their members.

Credit unions provide the same financial services as banks but are considered not-for-profit organizations and adhere to cooperative principles.

Credit unions originated in mid-19th century Germany through the efforts of pioneers Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen.

The FDIC does not provide deposit insurance for credit unions, which are insured by the National Credit Union Administration ( NCUA ).

( Credit unions remained insured by the National Credit Union Administration.

Federal credit unions are regulated by National Credit Union Administration ( NCUA ); Savings & Loan Associations ( S & L ) and Federal savings banks ( FSB ) are regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision ( OTS ).

Many workers left the province, which suppressed real estate prices and hurt financial institutions ; two Albertan banks, the Canadian Commercial Bank and the Northlands Bank, failed in September 1985. Credit unions were facing similar troubles, and the Lougheed government had, in its last days, injected $ 100 million into the industry.

Credit unions differ from banks and other financial institutions in that the members who have accounts in the credit union are the owners of the credit union and they elect their board of directors in a democratic one-person-one-vote system regardless of the amount of money invested in the credit union.

Credit unions offer many of the same financial services as banks, often using a different terminology ; common services include: share accounts ( savings accounts ), share draft accounts ( checking accounts ), credit cards, share term certificates ( certificates of deposit ), and online banking.

Credit unions are " not-for-profit " because they operate to serve their members rather than to maximize profits.

According to the World Council of Credit Unions ( WOCCU ), a credit union's revenues ( from loans and investments ) need to exceed its operating expenses and dividends ( interest paid on deposits ) in order to maintain capital and solvency and " credit unions use excess earnings to offer members more affordable loans, a higher return on savings, lower fees or new products and services ".

Based on data from the World Council of Credit Unions, at the end of 2010 there were 52, 945 credit unions in 100 countries around the world.

Credit unions were launched in 1992 in Poland, and as of 2012 there were 2, 000 credit union branches there with 2. 2 million members.

The largest corporate credit union in the United States is U. S. Central Credit Union of Lenexa, Kansas, which serves as a central clearing house for other corporate credit unions and holds approximately $ 45. 3 billion in assets.

A Credit Union Service Organization ( CUSO ) is generally a for-profit subsidiary of one or more credit unions formed for this purpose.

The World Council of Credit Unions is both a trade association for credit unions worldwide and a development agency.

Credit unions in the United States have traditionally used a state / national trade association relationship that aligns credit unions with state " Credit Union Leagues " followed by national affiliation with the Credit Union National Association ( CUNA ) of Madison, Wisconsin.

Federal credit unions may also be members of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions ( NAFCU ).

Education in Ontario once involved an Ontario Academic Credit ( OAC ) as university preparation, but that was phased out in 2007, and now all provinces except Quebec have 12 grades.

Caouette continued to run in elections unsuccessfully through the 1950s over the objections of Even and Côté-Mercier and split with them on May 4, 1958 to form Ralliement des créditistes as the Quebec wing of the Social Credit Party of Canada with himself as leader.

Social Credit was never able to form a provincial government in Quebec due to the near dominance of social conservative votes by the Union Nationale party from the 1930s into the 1960s.

The Social Credit Party, however, soon became a major contender in Quebec for seats to the federal Parliament in the 1960s.

Although BC and Alberta would elect a few Social Credit Members of Parliament ( MPs ) in that decade, it would be Quebec that maintained the party's national presence after 1962.

In the 1962 election, Social Credit won 26 of 75 seats in Quebec, beating the Progressive Conservative Party.

The most Social Credit ever captured in terms of the Quebec popular vote was 27. 3 % federally, and 11. 2 % provincially.

The Quebec wing of the movement broke from the rest of the party in 1963 to form its own Quebec-only federal Social Credit party, the Ralliement des créditistes.

The Bennett years left the Conservatives in the worst shape they had ever been-not only did enmity towards the Tories continue in Quebec as a legacy of the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but they were now reviled in the West for their perceived insensitivity to the needs of farmers in the Dust Bowl and Westerners turned to Social Credit or the CCF making the Tories their fourth choice.

The Social Credit Party of Canada was originally strongest in Alberta, before developing a base in Quebec when Réal Caouette agreed to merge his Ralliement créditiste movement into the federal party.

Nevertheless, in the 1940s, Social Credit supporters in Quebec often ran under the name Union des électeurs, a social credit organization which had been formed in 1939 by Louis Even and Gilberte Côté-Mercier as the political arm of their religious organization, the Pilgrims of Saint Michael, and which had an on again, off again, relationship with the western-based national party as well as an inconsistent attitude towards electoral politics.

In 1958, Caouette broke with Even and Côté-Mercier and the increasingly hostile attitude of the Union des électeurs towards elections and party politics and founded the Ralliement des créditistes which won recognition as the Quebec wing of the national Social Credit party.

The linguistic imbalance caused severe tensions in the Social Credit caucus, as the Quebec MPs regarded Caouette as their leader.

Of the 20 Social Credit MPs from Quebec in 1963, 13 joined Caouette's Ralliement, five of the remaining seven ran in the next election as independents, and two joined the Progressive Conservatives.

In the 1972 election, the Social Credit Party won 15 seats — all in Quebec — and 7. 6 % of the popular vote.

In the 1974 federal election, the Social Credit Party machine in Quebec began to fall apart.

Feuding within the party had accelerated: Some ridings in Quebec had two Social Credit candidates, while others — including the party's Lévis stronghold — had none.

In December 1979, the remaining five members of the Social Credit caucus demanded that the Conservatives amend their budget to allocate the controversial gas tax revenues to Quebec.

The death of the Social Credit candidate in the riding of Frontenac, Quebec, resulted in the postponement of the election in that riding to March 24, 1980.

For decades, the Social Credit Party's Quebec wing, the Ralliement créditiste, attracted many Quebec nationalists as a party that could represent Quebec's interests in the Canadian House of Commons.

According to Mr. Turmel: " Quebec Social Credit first argued for a national LETS currency.

It was a moderate faction that split from the Ralliement créditiste, the Quebec wing of the Social Credit Party of Canada.

While Even's group ran candidates in the 1945 federal election under the national Social Credit banner and again in subsequent by-elections, by 1949 the Quebec créditistes were again running candidates under the Union des électeurs banner as they were also doing in the Quebec provincial elections.