This Saturday, November 5th is Bank Transfer Day. This is the day where all those customers who have been complaining about big banks and their costly policies and fees are slated to take action by moving their money out of big banks and over to a non-profit credit unions.
The movement is not associated with the occupy Wall Street movement but is certainly well timed to take advantage of the anti Wall Street sentiment. It was started by a small business owner in Los Angeles named Kristen Christian who was fed up with big bank fees and her view that big banks are taking advantage of the impoverished and working class. She is calling for all those who feel the same way to move their money out of big bank accounts on or before November 5th.
Kristen is calling on Americans to use one of their greatest powers available to them. The ability to vote with their pocketbook. When large numbers of people simply boycott or put there money elsewhere it can be very effective. If you don't believe me ask Netflix who recently just lost 800,000 subscribers in the last few months over big price increases.
Bank of America's plans to charge $5 a month for the use of a debit card seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back. All this was started by the Durbin Amendment that limited debit card fees that cut into big banks profits (see OLBB blog on Durbin Amendment). Due to the strong backlash BOA is now considering at least some changes to allow customers to avoid the fee such as using direct deposit.
This is not the first time that a similar campaign has been tried. The Move Your Money campaign started by Arianna Huffington and friends earlier this year (see OLBB previous post on this) called for the same action with some effectiveness but didn't change the big banks lives.
So the big question is if Bank Transfer Day will be effective?
So far the Bank Transfer Day Facebook page has 31,779 likes and 11,897 talking about it at the time of this writing. The answer is it depends on the goal. Remember, we are talking about BIG banks and the response would have to be significantly bigger than it is right now to truly put a dent in big banks profits. The fact that these are large publicly owned institutions that are beholdent to their investors to create profit the behavior cannot change.
However, if the goal is to make a statement and bring awareness to the fact that there are other choices and they can benefit the local communities then the answer is a resounding yes. While it might not hurt big bank profits significantly it may still be a boost for smaller banks who need the help. This could bring more money into local communities for investment perhaps better then some of the US governments attempts.
The fact is that Americans have always had a choice and it is hard to listen to the complaints when there truly are other options, especially for non-commercial banking for individuals. Since moving your money is never easy, you need to weigh the advantages and disadvantes of doing so, something we blog about here a lot.
