Bank Transfer Day

Tomorrow, November 5th, 2011, has been unofficially designated as ‘Bank Transfer Day‘, which is ‘a consumer activism initiative calling for a voluntary switch from commercial banks to not-for-profit credit unions and community banks by November 5, 2011‘.

It’s been adopted and supported by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters, but it predates them, and is not officially connected to them. The campaign’s Facebook page states:

While the Bank Transfer Day movement acknowledges the enthusiasm from Occupy Wall Street, the Bank Transfer Day movement was neither inspired by, derived from nor organized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the Bank Transfer Day movement does not endorse any activities conducted by Occupy Wall Street.

The founder of Bank Transfer Day describes the reason for the campaign as follows:

The Durbin Amendment is an add-on to the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Public Law No. 111-203), signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010. The Act allows the Federal Reserve to regulate debit card interchange fees of banks with over $10 billion in assets. Over the summer, the Fed released the final rule on the matter by limiting debit card interchange fees to a maximum of 21¢ per transaction.

In response, these corporate-level banks have decided that beginning early 2012 any consumer with less than $20,000 in combined accounts will be charged a monthly $3-5 fee if they use their debit card at any point during the month. This new fee clearly targets the impoverished & working class. After endless research, the organizer concluded that her money would be put to better use on the local level through not-for-profit credit unions.

• With the Durbin Amendment in effect, banks will still make 19¢ profit per processed transaction;
• The average consumer uses his/her debit card 24 times per month;
• Without the additional fee, Bank of America stands to turn a $3,228,480,000 annual profit from its 59 million customers’ debit card transactions;
• Without the additional fee, Wells Fargo stands to turn a $2,626,560,000 annual profit from its 48 million customers’ debit card transactions;
• Without the additional fee, JP Morgan (Chase) stands to turn a $4,924,800,000 annual profit from its 90 million customers’ debit card transactions.
  

The organizer, Kristen Christian has said, “I started this because I felt like many of you do. I was tired– tired of the fee increases, tired of not being able to access my money when I need to, tired of them using what little money I have to oppress my brothers & sisters. So I stood up. I’ve been shocked at how many people have stood up alongside me. With each person who RSVPs to this event, my heart swells. Me closing my account all on my lonesome wouldn’t have made a difference to these fat cats. But each of YOU standing up with me… they can’t drown out the noise we’ll make.”

Even though the major banks have just announced that they’re abandoning their plans to charge customers additional fees for debit card use and/or transactions, this doesn’t mean they won’t replace those ‘in-your-face’ charges with other, less obvious ones that will still rake in undue profits for them at our expense. As Comrade Misfit notes:

I say: Keep closing those accounts regardless.

The reason I say that is because those banksters are just going to try with other fees. They’ll charge you for receiving a statement by mail. They’ll charge you for using a live teller. They’ll charge you for moving money from your savings account to your checking account. They’ll charge you for doing a transaction online.

They’ll figure out other ways to separate you from your money.

So keep closing those accounts. Don’t use their ATMs. They’re feeling some pain, now. Keep inflicting it.

. . .

They set up this recession. They pumped up the housing market by offering sub-prime and similar loans. It was the banksters that opted to offer “liar loans” and “nina loans“. It was the big banksters that bundled the loans into toxic securities and sold them, which removed those rotten loans from their local portfolios. It was the banksters, the really crooked ones, who offered those securities and then sold them short. And now the banksters keep trying to cover up their misdeeds with robo-signed mortgages and other fraudulent documents.

There’s more at the link. I agree with her. The banksters deserve to get hurt.

The groundswell of people moving their accounts appears to have already begun, according to the Associated Press and CNN. I hope tomorrow brings an avalanche of new business to local banks and credit unions, and a real headache to the banksters. I have no time for them at all.

(Disclaimer: I’ve banked with credit unions in two states for almost a decade, after getting more than a little fed up with mainstream banking services. I’ve had uniformly excellent, friendly, customer-oriented service from the credit unions, and I couldn’t be happier as their customer.)

Peter