(2011-10-19) Bank Transfer Day

In an event titled “BankTransferDay” thousands are signing up to leave large Retail Bank-s in favor of Credit Union-s on or before Saturday, November 5, over what some call unethical practices.

Nov04 update: The 80,000 consumers who have pledged to move their money won’t break a sweat on banking executives’ brow quite yet. To put it in context, that’s less than 1 percent of Bank of America’s 57 million customer base. However, if all of those consumers encouraged four or five friends to join BTD and 400,000 consumers hopped the bandwagon, that’s the kind of hole in big banks’ pocket to garner attention.

Nov07 update: In the five weeks leading up to the weekend – ever since the Sept. 29 announcement by Bank Of America about a $5 debit-card fee, which has since been rescinded – more than $4.5 billion has shifted from big banks into the nation’s roughly 7,000 credit unions alone, according to the Credit Union National Association (CUNA). CUNA spokesman Mark Wolff says he expects final numbers by Tuesday afternoon. By some estimates, the 650,000 consumers who had moved their accounts to credit unions by last Thursday could soon climb to 1 million.