Credit Union ONE Revenue and Competitors

Credit Union ONE traces its roots to the Great Depression, a troubling time of financial hardship for many Americans. Seeking to make a better future, a handful of people banded together in 1938 to form the Ferndale Co-Operative Credit Union. It was a modest beginning. At the start, the Co-Op worked out of a church basement. But the "people helping people" philosophy worked so well we're now 100,000 members strong and offer a full range of financial services to members throughout Michigan. Indeed, the first credit unions started in much the same way that Credit Union ONE did. In the mid-1800s, many Europeans were poverty-stricken and despairing as a result of bad crop years, wars, and unfulfilled promises of the industrial revolution. There were a few cooperative experiments as early as 1844. But we trace the modern credit union movement to two German mayors, one of whom is credited with founding urban credit unions in 1852. The other, Frederick William Raiffeisen, is credited with founding credit unions as we know them today. His agricultural cooperatives, which began in 1849, helped almost-destitute German farmers regain the independence and self-esteem that comes with financial well-being. Raiffeisen is also credited with embedding the "people helping people" philosophy into the credit union movement. He considered helping people more important than profit. To this day, credit unions uphold this principle. The credit union concept eventually traveled to the U.S. By 1909, the first U.S. credit union was established in New Hampshire. There are now more than 12,000 credit unions in the U.S.