How did credit unions begin?
In 1844, workers and weavers of Rochdale, England created a democratic consumer cooperative. They organized a store and offered shares in order to raise capital to buy goods at less than retail price and sell them to their members at a savings. The underlying principle of all cooperatives is that the society operates solely for the benefit of its members. The work of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffiesen (1818-1888), considered to be the founder of credit unions in Germany, still influences contemporary credit union development. In the United States. The first chartered credit union in the United States was established in Massachusetts in 1909 with the help of Alphonse Desjardins (1854-1920). Today there are more than 71 million credit union members of more than 11,000 credit unions nationwide.
