credit union

(noun)

A financial cooperative similar to a bank but owned and controlled by its members, often restricted to a local area or sometimes to a single profession.

Related Terms

Examples of credit union in the following topics:

  • The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)

    • Congress to regulate, charter, and supervise federal credit unions.
    • The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is the United States independent federal agency that supervises and charters federal credit unions.
    • The chartering of credit unions in all states is due to the signing of the Federal Credit Union Act by President Franklin D.
    • At first, the newly created Bureau of Federal Credit Unions was housed at the Farm Credit Administration.
    • As the insurer and regulator of federally chartered credit unions, the NCUA oversees credit union safety and soundness, much like the FDIC.

  • Credit Unions

    • Credit unions are substitutes and competitors of banks, owned by members as a financial cooperative.
    • Credit unions usually offer better rates on deposits and lower costs for loans
    • Credit unions offer access to borrowing options not always available at traditional banks
    • Credit unions increase competition (big banks tend to be oligopolies, while credit unions are intrinsically smaller in scale, thus high in quantity)
    • Credit unions are smaller, and therefore more likely to go out of business

  • The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

    • United States banks and credit unions are closely regulated and supervised to ensure that consumer money is safe.
    • Banks and credit unions are required to comply with regulations.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures deposit accounts for banks and the National Credit Union Administration for credit unions.

  • Ownership of Corporations

    • For instance, in a worker cooperative, people who work for the cooperative are members, while in a credit union, people who have credit union accounts are members.

  • The Small Business Administration

    • SBA loans are made through banks, credit unions, and other lenders who partner with the SBA.
    • Under the Recovery Act and the Small Business Jobs Act, SBA loans were enhanced to provide up to a 90 percent guarantee in order to strengthen access to capital for small businesses after credit froze in 2008.

  • Credit Cards

    • A credit card is a payment card issued to users as a system of payment.
    • Credit cards are issued by an issuer like a bank or credit union after an account has been approved by the credit provider, after which cardholders can use it to make purchases at merchants accepting that card.
    • As all credit cards charge fees and interest, some customers become so indebted to their credit card provider that they are driven to bankruptcy.
    • Merchants are charged several fees for accepting credit cards.
    • Merchants may charge users a "credit card supplement," either a fixed amount or a percentage, for payment by credit card.

  • Credit Ratings

    • Credit ratings are determined by credit ratings agencies.
    • A sovereign credit rating is the credit rating of a sovereign entity like a national government.
    • A credit score is primarily based on credit report information, typically from one of the three major credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.
    • Income is not considered by the major credit bureaus when calculating a credit score.
    • The credit bureaus all have their own credit scores: Equifax's ScorePower, Experian's PLUS score, and TransUnion's credit score, and each also sells the VantageScore credit score.

  • Landrum-Griffin Act

    • Declare that every union officer must act as a fiduciary in handling the assets and conducting the affairs of the union.
    • Limit the power of unions to put subordinate bodies in trusteeship, a temporary suspension of democratic processes within a union.
    • Provide certain minimum standards before a union may expel or take other disciplinary action against a member of the union.
    • On the other hand, it cannot be said that union corruption and abuses of union power have disappeared.
    • But such conduct in the union movement is not as common as it was twenty years ago; and, in large measure, that can be credited to the existence of the Landrum-Griffin Act. " Senator Griffin acknowledged the shortcomings, particularly with regard to the Teamsters.

  • Obtaining Credit

    • The credit card company uses the credit report, provided by the credit bureau, to determine if the lender is likely to pay back the loan.
    • Types of credit include: bank credit, consumer credit, public credit, and investment credit.
    • The purest form is the credit default swap market, which is essentially a traded market in credit insurance.
    • The term "credit reputation" can either be used synonymous to credit history or to credit score.
    • In the U.S., when a customer fills out an application for credit from a bank, store or credit card company, their information is forwarded to a credit bureau.

  • Modern Labor Organizations

    • Labor unions have lost power in the United States over the years and, today, union membership varies by sector.
    • Most of the recent gains in union membership have been in the service sector, while the number of unionized employees in the manufacturing sector has declined.
    • Historically, the rapid growth of public employee unions since the 1960s has served to mask an even more dramatic decline in private-sector union membership.
    • Although most industrialized countries have seen a drop in unionization rates, the drop in union density (the unionized proportion of the working population) has been more significant in the United States than elsewhere.
    • Unions no longer carry the "threat effect:" the power of unions to raise wages of non-union shops by virtue of the threat of unions to organize those shops.