Cooperative financial institutions (CFIs) are among the poorly understood entities in financial markets. They include diverse member-owned financial intermediaries referred to as credit unions, savings and credit cooperatives, cooperative banks, and other terms that differ across regions of the world. Their institutional structure and governance, legal and regulatory status, and scale and services portfolio also vary widely across regions and especially between industrialized countries and developing economies. A most basic common denominator is that they collect deposits and do business...