The Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA; French: Association canadienne des coopératives financières) is the national trade association for credit unions in Canada (outside the province of Quebec). Founded in 1953, it rebranded to its current name in January 2016 to reflect its "evolving role as an association that is focused on growing a stronger... credit union industry."

CCUA was founded as the Canadian Co-operative Credit Society (CCCS) to support a growing credit union system in the 1950s. It was renamed to Credit Union Central of Canada in 1993 to better reflect its relationship to its provincial member credit union centrals before rebranding to its current name in January 2016 to reflect its evolving role in fostering a stronger Canadian credit union industry.

The Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA) is the national credit union trade association that provides services to Canada's credit unions, caisses populaires (outside of Quebec) and regional Central organizations. CCUA works to improve federal and provincial legislation impacting credit unions and advocates for supportive legislative and regulatory policy development. It provides a national voice on behalf of Canada's credit unions and raises awareness of credit unions among Canadians, helping the credit union sector grow and compete within the Canadian financial services landscape. CCUA also provides professional development and education, webinars, conferences, research and other services for the benefit of its members. CCUA is governed by a board of directors appointed by its member credit unions and centrals.

The Canadian credit union movement began in 1900 with the foundation of a Caisse Populaire – the French-Canadian equivalent of a credit union – in Levis, Quebec. Its founder, Alphonse Desjardins, was a French stenographer in the federal House of Commons in Ottawa. To facilitate the exchange of savings and to help local credit unions become more efficient, credit union leaders in all the English-speaking provinces organized provincial centrals (called co-operative credit societies or credit union leagues).

The Canadian Co-operative Credit Society (CCCS) was owned by the provincial centrals and for the first half of the 1900s, the association evolved to become the system's financial facility and provided access for credit unions at the national payment systems.

In 1953, some of the centrals, along with other nonfinancial co-operatives, organized the Canadian Co-operative Credit Society (CCCS), a national organization used primarily to transfer funds among the centrals. CCCS was owned by the provincial centrals and for the first half of the 1900s, before later becoming the Credit Union Central of Canada, a federally regulated financial institution.

By the early 1950s the Canadian credit union system saw the development of two different but related types of organizations: a national trade association to be a convening body and voice for the system, and a national finance facility to provide liquidity to support a distinctly Canadian credit union organization.

Beginning in 1908 and accelerating in the 1930s, credit unions were incorporated provincially in small communities and rural areas of the Maritimes, Ontario, the Prairies and British Columbia, while in Quebec, a federated caisse populaire network developed very differently from the rest of the country.