What's the difference between a Bank and a Credit Union?

a bank is owned by a corporation, or a government a credit union is owned by the people that work in a specific place, let's say a telephone company credit union, so if are working for the telephone company you will do your banking at the credit union, I forget I used to know all the differences, but you sort of get a better deal because you are an employee.

I am not so sure. The only thing I know about their difference is their business objectives. Bank are more profit oriented while credit union are putting priorities on member well fare. And because such different trading nature, a lot of bank had been taking risky measure to sell their mortgage plan. This finally leads to the financial crisis in the wall street, because they are giving high risk housing loan to people who do not have strong financial background. While credit union is gathering all the member's savings, and use it for loan base on member's well fare. Therefore, it's not their prime priorities to approve high risk loan to gain the profit.

thanks for best response hon

Wow, that is a great discussion to ask. I too do not know the difference. Ok... after reading through some of the posts in this discussion, I got a general idea of what the difference is. I know the follwing is going to sound dumb. But bear with me, okay? So, how does one recognize whether a credit lending institution is a bank or a credit union?

Credit unions are member owned and locally controlled. We have more say in what goes on. Banks...are investor controlled. Any profits a credit union makes go to the members...banks go to the investors. Varying by credit union members have to apply to be a member. Each memeber owns one share and gets one vote. Credit unions have more personalized service. I can access my money from any credit union in canada...never tried outside of canada.