Credit unions in the United States

Credit unions in the United States served 100 million members, comprising 43.7% of the economically active population, in 2014. U.S. credit unions are not-for-profit, cooperative, tax-exempt organizations. The clients of the credit unions become partners of the financial institution and their presence focuses in certain neighborhoods because they center their services in one specific community. As of March 2020, the largest American credit union was Navy Federal Credit Union, serving U.S. Department of Defense employees, contractors, and families of servicepeople, with over $125 billion in assets and over 9.1 million members. Total credit union assets in the U.S. reached $1 trillion as of March 2012. Approximately 236,000 people were directly employed by credit unions per data derived from the 2012 National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Credit Union Directory. As of 2019, there were 5,236 federally insured credit unions with 120.4 million members, and deposits of $1.22 trillion.

Due to their small size and limited exposure to mortgage securitizations, credit unions weathered the financial crisis 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 National Credit Union Administration on March 20, 2009.