Run On The Banks? 650,000 Leave Big Banks In One Month

It's Your Money, Take It Back

At least 650,000 consumers have already joined credit unions since Sept. 29, the day Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) announced plans to impose its controversial $5 debit card fee, according to a nationwide survey of credit unions by the Credit Union National Association.

This is numbers up to November 1st .. the official "transfer" day is November 5th. The total estimated value of the cash holdings is $4.5 Billion Dollars. Not including the cycling automated deposits from paychecks (that banks are allowed to use as estimated holdings for use as leverage). Meaning the total effect of leverage is something like $400 billion dollars. In one month. In fact, Credit Unions across the country have added over a years worth of membership in just one month.. and November is expected to be even bigger than October. I think we can thank OWS for this, for getting the message out and putting it in our faces. Many people obviously cannot go out and protest big banks and corruption every day, and this is a direct and very patriotic way of protesting.

This report does not consider how many moved from big banks to Regional banks, those much smaller than national banks and are usually confined to either metro areas or state.

Meanwhile, the Independent Community Bankers of America said a poll of its 5,000 members conducted on Oct. 17 found that nearly 60% of community banks are gaining customers who are sick and tired of the big financial institutions. The association's community bank locator has seen more than 5,000 inquiries in the last few weeks -- an increase of nearly 500%.

Unfortunately there is no way of actually tracking the number moving to regional banks.

"They take your deposits and use them to buy politicians to de-regulate, give them immunity, interest-free loans and bailouts. Then they turn around and charge you fees to make them even richer," said one "Move Your Money" flyer posted on a Facebook page dedicated to the initiative (which has 43,679 "likes"). "Take your money to a credit union or a community bank that will use your money in your community and not to pervert the rule of law and fill their own pockets."

They thought they could push us around, and treat us like children, literally robbing us as they make billions off of our money. We should have done this the instant a bailout was considered, but we did not.

The only side effect is that this could be construed as a run on the banks .. hundreds of thousands flooding banks removing their money and stashing it into other institutions ... this actually very well may cause these huge banks to become insolvent is enough is withdrawn. Still, I say it needs to be expanded.. remove investments, CD's, deposit boxes, credit card balances, car loans even or mortgages away from big banks and into Credit Unions.

I have had a credit union for some time, always get better service there than any bank I have ever had.

Already convinced a few people in my house hold to switch to a credit union.

I would take part in this too, but all my money is already in a credit union. And doing that months ago was a hassle, they wouldn't even let me withdraw all of the money right away, It took at least a week. So I wonder how hard its going to be for the people doing it on the 5th... oh well

reply to post by Dachanman97


I opened an account at a Credit Union last week with a $100 deposit. My wife and I then redirected our automatic deposit to the Credit Union. Now I have my Check Cards, my Checks and everything else, and next Friday the first paychecks are deposited..

Once the paychecks start getting deposited I go to Wells Fargo (where my savings, checking accounts are) and close them. I'll be paying to have my Savings wired to my new banks savings, and my checking won't matter because I'll pay all my bills and run it down to almost nothing anyways.. and since I already have everything set up for next months round of bill with my new CU I won't be caught with my pants around my ankles unable to access my cash.

So the key is simply keep both open till your new account is fully set up, then close the old account. Makes for a smooth transition.

This is such good news! Makes me happy to see people take their money out of the banks. My wife and I ran onto trouble in July with Chase with whom she had over a dozen years with. Needless to say we had a breach of our account and Chase was very unhelpful, held the money in our accounts for almost two months after we closed them. We went right to a credit union I already belong to. I tried to get her to close the Chase accounts for years telling her how Chase would screw us at some point. Mark my words.
OP thanks for making my day with this post! S+F!! I only hope to be further encouraged by seeing this trend continue. It is about time we the people get our rightful seat at the table!

Just a warning.

Make sure you get good terms with your new accounts.

I closed an account I had with a local bank because they decided that they were going to begin charging a monthly fee on all previously free checking accounts.

I left banks behind about ten years ago... after growing increasingly unhappy with the sheer volume of fees and charges on even the most minimal transactions and so on (I hardly ever withdraw anything, make a few bPay and direct deposit transfers for bills etc. per month, but that's about it).

I've never looked back. My credit union is fantastic.
I'd recommend them, but they're local and I'm not sure how many Tasmanians we have on ATS!