This paper presents a comprehensive review on the activity of credit cooperatives in those countries where this sector has a long tradition and reached an important development. It describes the historical evolution in each country with special focus on the regulatory issues. The main differences between the cooperative financial sector and the traditional banking system are their corporative structure and the geographical area where these entities operate, which are a result of the market where they operate. We found an important development of a banking cooperative structure in those countries where the activity is significant, which is usually organized in federations and central entities operating with different products and services. This pyramidal structure is mainly related with the need of reaching economies of scale and synergies that local entities could not obtain. The federations provide services to local entities and represent them before the authorities. Central units work close to federations, providing a broad range of services too. This kind of structure, called cooperative net, allows local entities to exploit their relative advantages in contrast to big banks, related to the knowledge and geographical proximity to clients, but without having to suffer disadvantages in the variety of services they can provide.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
1167.