Navy Federal Credit Union is a non-profit banking cooperative owned by active, retired, and honorably separated members of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, as well as their families. Navy Federal, one of the country's largest credit unions, has more than $47 billion in assets and serves more than 3 million members through a network of approximately 1,000 branches around the world. It is one of the world's largest credit unions, having been founded in 1933 during the Great Depression to "help fill the gap" between what banks were prepared to lend to service members stationed abroad and what they required for daily needs at home.