This poster showcases the evolution of credit unions over the years, and the future of the industry. Under the guidance of my research mentor, I conducted research regarding the origins and transformations of the credit union industry, with the central question I aimed to answer being whether credit unions remained viable financial institutions in the 21st century. I began by explaining that credit unions are financial cooperatives that provide many of the same financial services as commercial banks but are entirely owned and operated by their own members. The organizations were designed as a means for low-income communities to pool their funds together to offer their friends, neighbors, and colleagues loans and other financial services they weren’t able to afford at large commercial banks. As they were originally intended to be community organizations, credit unions are nonprofit, tax-exempt institutions. I went on to describe the methods through which the research was conducted, which was by analuyzing scholarly articles about credit unions from different time periods and countries. I noted that a point of interest was how authors’ opinions towards credit unions changed over time, and how credit unions had different effects on the economies of different countries.  For instance, while authors from the mid-to-late 1900s viewed credit unions as a booming industry that had yet to reach its peak, 21st century authors from the last couple of decades essentially think that credit unions are obsolete. Similarly, credit unions served as a means of self-empowerment for communities of low-income women in the UK, while the hope that credit unions would lift Cyprus out of the financial crisis of the early 2000s sadly never became reality. In terms of describing the results of the research, I highlighted that we found that the number of credit unions has declined dramatically over the last few decades as a result of rampant mergers. Moreover, the operations of credit unions appear to mimic that of banks, and while credit unions initially served members of one low-income community, they now allow almost anyone to become a member. The conclusion we reached was that credit unions no longer remain viable financial institutions, and that their charter should accordingly be abolished.