<prompt> Human: And what are the pros and cons of going to either one? Which do you recommend? Edit: I currently only use credit unions.  <response>: A credit union is owned by its members while a bank is owned privately. Credit unions tend to have much lower fees and more favorable rates. Many credit unions pay their members a dividend at the end of each year based on how much of the services they are using. Big national banks tend to have better ATM access, but credit unions have fought back against this by joining together into large cooperative networks with other credit unions. Since credit unions are not for profit, they tend to have somewhat tighter requirements, such as you might need a slightly better credit score or a better LTV loan to value ratio to get a loan. That is to say, credit unions are more risk-averse because they cant afford to take on risky loans. 