The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), founded in London in 1895, comprises 242 cooperative organisations active in more than 100 countries. More than 725 million people in the world are members of some sort of cooperatives, whether they are in the banking, agricultural or in insurance businesses. Credit unions worldwide represent assets of $6 trillion, or 17% of the assets of the world's 1,000 largest banks.
Credit unions must band together if they want to compete against commercial banks, delegates at a worldwide conference on banking cooperatives heard. More than 1,000 delegates from 63 countries gathered in Quebec City on 30th August 1999 for a 3-day general assembly of the Geneva-based International Cooperative Alliance.