Credit Union Xerox

In Europe credit unions had begun in Germany and in Italy in the 1850’s and 1860’s. It was to be almost a half century before the first credit union appeared in North America. Founded in 1900 in Levi, Quebec by Alphonsus Desjardin the first such institution was the result of his interest in usury arising from his work as a parliamentary reporter.

Mutual Insurance Company

Nine years later Desjardin founded the first credit union in the USA in Manchester, New Hampshire. He regarded these co-operative banks not as regular financial institutions but as “an expression in the field of a high social ideal”. By 1934 there were credit unions in at least 22 states and these came together to form the Credit Union National Association (CUNA).

One of the newly formed association’s first acts was to establish the movement's own life assurance society. This was the birth of the CUNA Mutual Insurance Company. (A Brief History of the Credit Union Movement, Association of British Credit Unions, accessed via the ABCU website, 9-04-10)