Canada In Canada, cooperative banking is provided by credit unions (caisses populaires in French). As of September 30, 2012, there were 357 credit unions and caisses populaires affiliated with Credit Union Central of Canada. They operated 1,761 branches across the country with 5.3 million members and $149.7 billion in assets. Quebec The caisse populaire movement started by Alphonse Desjardins in Quebec, Canada, pioneered credit unions. Desjardins opened the first credit union in North America in 1900, from his home in Lévis, Quebec, marking the beginning of the Mouvement Desjardins. He was interested in bringing financial protection to working people. United Kingdom British building societies developed into general-purpose savings and banking institutions with ‘one member, one vote’ ownership and can be seen as a form of financial cooperative (although many de-mutualised into conventionally owned banks in the 1980s and 1990s). Until 2017 the Co-operative Group included The Co-operative Bank, although despite its name, the Co-operative Bank was not itself a true co-operative as it was not owned directly by its members. Instead it was part-owned by a holding company which was itself a co-operative – the Co-operative Banking Group. It still retains an insurance provider, The Co-operative Insurance, noted for promoting ethical investment. Continental Europe Important continental cooperative banking systems include the Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, Banque Populaire and Caisse d'épargne in France, Grupo Caja Rural in Spain, Rabobank in the Netherlands, BVR/DZ Bank in Germany, Banco Popolare, UBI Banca in Italy, Migros and Coop Bank in Switzerland, and the Raiffeisen system in several countries in central and eastern Europe. The cooperative banks that are members of the European Association of Co-operative Banks have 130 million customers, 4 trillion euros in assets, and 17% of Europe's deposits. The International Confederation of Cooperative Banks (CIBP) is the oldest association of cooperative banks at international level. In the Nordic countries, there is a clear distinction between mutual savings banks (Sparbank) and true credit unions (Andelsbank). United States Credit unions in the United States had 96.3 million members in 2013 and assets of $1.06 trillion. The sector had five times lower failure rate than other banks during the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and more than doubled lending to small businesses between 2008 and 2016, from $30 billion to $60 billion, while lending to small businesses overall during the same period declined by around $100 billion. Public trust in credit unions stands at 60%, compared