Certainly. Thank you for the question.
The main difference between credit unions and traditional banks or other financial institutions is in their governance model itself. Credit unions, generally speaking, have a membership within a certain region or area. Because of that, the people who work in the credit unions generally know their clients much better than they would in a banking system. That gets into things like the initiative to stop money laundering and that sort of thing. It certainly has an advantage that way, because they know their clients a lot better.
The governance of a credit union is done locally, with a board, so that the decisions made are made in the best interests of the people within that community. There is some assurance of accountability between the members and the people governing their credit union. That's opposed to a traditional bank, where shareholders are usually great distances from their boards and have very little or no say in how their money is being used and managed. Because of that, the credit unions more often support local initiatives and community projects. In fact, based on 2010 statistics, they actually donate about four times as much of their pre-tax earnings to community-based initiatives and charitable matters.
Those are some of the differences between a credit union and a bank.