In the month since Bank of America announced it would start charging a monthly $5 for using debit cards, an amazing 650,000 Americans joined credit unions. That’s more (in one month) than the number of people who signed up for credit unions in all of 2010.
According to the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), people who move to Credit Unions will save an average of $70 a year because of reduced fees, and better rates on loans and savings.
But it could get worse. Today is “Bank Transfer Day” — encouraging people to move their money out of the too-big-to-fail banks and into credit unions and community banks. They even have a handy website to help you find a local bank or credit union.
3 Comments
This is fantastic. I was really hoping that BofA would get burned for this. $60 a year (raised from $0) just to use a debit card – who thought of this terrible idea? A buck or two and they would have gotten away with it. They could have even raised it gradually. But starting out at $5 per month was the dumbest decision they could have made.
I checked the website and all the banks I use (minus the one that owns my mortgage – can’t really do much about that) are on the list, so sadly I don’t have any money to transfer today.
You know what really pisses me off is the way the credit card companies can jack up fees for small businesses. I don’t understand why we’re not hearing about this. The owner of a local coffee shop was telling us that his per-swipe fee is supposed to double this year. Of course, this only hurts small businesses because the huge ones (like McDonalds) negotiate lower fees. So if I swipe my card to pay for my $2 coffee, the owner automatically loses $ .25 and this is expected to go up to $ .50-60 in the coming year, effectively killing his profit. I think I’ll be moving to mostly cash after hearing about this.
Now thats capitalism in a democratic society. Thats how you promote change. Thats our voice.