Cooperatives The cooperative (Genossenschaft) is a common form of organisation in Germany. A friend of mine lives in an apartment owned by a housing cooperative. He is a member of this cooperative. He owns three cooperative shares. You have to own at least three shares, if you want to rent an apartment in a house owned by the cooperative. If you purchase the shares for 150 € each, an apartment is vacant and you rent it, you are going to have a lifelong right to live there, as long as you follow the rules (mainly: keep paying the rent and keeping the cooperative shares). The cooperative almost completely uses the surplus for the houses and pays only a small profit, if any, to the shareholders. They have among other things a boul ground and the extremely clean dustbins have their own houses. One out of four in Germany has a bank account at a cooperative bank. It's the same principle. You have to buy at least one share for about 60 € then you can open an account. The dividende is about 6 % per year. Other popular sectors for cooperatives are agriculture and energie. EDEKA, the largest retailer in Germany is a cooperative.