Forum Post: Info on Credit Unions

www.moveyourmoneyproject.org

To find a Credit Union:

http://www.findacreditunion.com/

http://locator.cucentral.com/

http://www.findyourcreditunion.co.uk/

Ok, everyone, please educate yourself about Credit Unions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_union

A credit union is a cooperative financial institution that is owned and 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.[1][2][3] Many credit unions exist to further community development[4] or sustainable international development on a local level.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_unions_in_the_United_States

Credit unions are member-owned cooperative financial institutions that offer the same financial services as banks. As of 2008, credit unions in the United States had 89 million members comprising 43.7% of the economically active population.[1] U.S. credit unions are not-for-profit, cooperative, tax-exempt organizations.[2]

Credit unions in the United States may either be chartered by the federal government ("federal credit unions")[3] or a state government.[4] The states of Delaware, South Dakota, and Wyoming do not regulate credit unions at the state level; in those states, a credit union must obtain a federal charter to operate.[5] All federal credit unions and 95% of state-chartered credit unions have "share insurance" (deposit insurance) of at least $250,000 per member through the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF).[6][7] This deposit insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government and is administered by the National Credit Union Administration.[7] As of December 2006, the NCUSIF had a higher insurance fund capital ratio than the fund for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).[8] U.S. credit unions also typically have higher equity capital ratios than U.S. banks.[8]

As of the end of 2007, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund insured more than $560 billion in deposits at 8,101 not-for-profit cooperative US credit unions.[9] For comparison, the FDIC insured more than $4 trillion in deposits at 8,560 banks and thrift institutions.[10] The NCUA and the FDIC are both independent federal agencies backed by the full faith and credit of the US government.

United States credit unions typically pay higher dividend (interest) rates on shares (deposits) and charge lower interest on loans than banks.[11] Credit unions therefore often have a higher cost of assets (i.e. interest expense as a percentage of average assets) than commercial banks, with aggregate U.S. credit union cost of assets being higher than the aggregate U.S. bank cost of assets in eight of the thirteen years between 1995 and 2007.[12] Credit union revenues (from loans and investments) do, however, need to exceed operating expenses and dividends (interest paid on deposits) in order to maintain capital and solvency.

Due to their small size and limited exposure to mortgage securitizations, credit unions have weathered the financial meltdown of 2008 reasonably well. However, two of the biggest corporate credit unions in the United States (U.S. Central Credit Union and Wescorp) with combined assets of more than $57 billion were taken over by the federal government National Credit Union Administration[13] on March 20, 2009.

For more info please visit OWS sister site: http://www.themultitude.org/