Cooperative banking
type of retail or commercial bank organized cooperatively
Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world.
Cooperative banking, as discussed here, includes retail banking carried out by credit unions, mutual savings banks, building societies and cooperatives, as well as commercial banking services provided by mutual organizations (such as cooperative federations) to cooperative businesses.
Institutions
Cooperative banks
Cooperative banks are owned by their customers and follow the cooperative principle of one person, one vote. Co-operative banks are often regulated under both banking and cooperative legislation. They provide services such as savings and loans to non-members as well as to members, and some participate in the wholesale markets for bonds, money and even equities. Many cooperative banks are traded on public stock markets, with the result that they are partly owned by non-members.
Member control can be diluted by these outside stakes, so they may be regarded as semi-cooperative.
Cooperative banking systems are also usually more integrated than credit union systems. Local branches of co-operative banks select their own boards of directors and manage their own operations, but most strategic decisions require approval from a central office.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3277997. The Library of Congress control number is sh85011651. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cooperative banking” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.