Why should you move your money?
Moving your money out of the big Wall Street banks to small community banks and credit unions is a great idea for a number of reasons: you will get better rates and fewer fees, your community banker will learn your name and provide you with more personal service, and you will be keeping money in your local community which increases economic development and eventually, creates more jobs. Yet the most important reason to move your money is to make your voice heard, to stand strong and no longer help a banking system that has run amok
INVEST IN MAIN STREET, NOT WALL STREET
When you keep your money in a local financial institution, that money in turn is reinvested in local businesses, which is important for building a stable economy and encouraging local growth. Put your money in the big Wall Street banks however, and they will use your deposits to make risky investments, gambling at the expense of the economy as a whole.
END TOO BIG TO FAIL
The big banks on Wall Street gambled with our money, then demanded a bailout of $700 billion. The size of these Wall Street “Banksters” threatens our economic system, yet their size has only increased since we bailed them out. According to FDIC data, the largest 5 banks held 13% of US deposits in 1994, today they hold 38%. If the government wont step in and break them up, then we must move our money ourselves and end ”Too Big To Fail” once and for all.
FEWER FEES, MORE SAVINGS
Worried about ATM fees? You shouldn’t be. More and more community banks and credit unions offer ATM surcharge-free networks, providing you with even more access to ATMs nationwide. Community banks and credit unions also charge on average less in fees, and often pay you higher interest on your accounts than big banks. The numbers are clear: the bigger the bank, the higher the fees.
GET MORE PERSONAL SERVICE
According to JD Power and Associates, small banks have consistently rated higher in overall customer satisfaction than their Wall Street counterparts and the gap has only widened in the last few years. Customers of community banks and credit unions talk to actual people when they call, instead of robotic phone-trees. Tellers often know them by name and treat their customers like family.
LEND A HAND TO LOCAL BUSINESSES
Smaller banks do disproportionately more small business lending than the big banks. Small businesses, in turn, are the main engine of job growth, accounting for 65% of new jobs. Banking locally is a great way to support independent businesses and create more jobs in your home town.
7 Simple Steps To Move Your Checking Account
Checklist
1. Find a Credit Union or Community Bank
There are several online tools to help locate Credit Unions and Community Banks in your area. Use the links provided here, Google them or talk to friends and family about the institutions that they use. If you have advice on local credit unions or banks let us know in the comments.
2. Open Your New Account
In most cases, you should be able open a checking account with an initial deposit of $25 to $100. At a credit union, you’ll also become a member and co-owner at the same time.
3. Order New Checks and an ATM/Debit Card
These typically arrive within 1 to 2 weeks. You should also consider applying for a credit card from your new local bank or credit union at the same time.
4. Ask Your Employer to Reroute Your Direct Deposit
When you open your new account, ask the bank or credit union for a direct deposit authorization form that includes your new account information. Give this form to your employer and anyone else who makes direct deposits to your account. It may take one or more pay cycles for the change to be made, so keep your old checking account open and watch for the switch.
5. Contact Companies that Direct-Debit Your Account
Using your last bank statement, make a list of any businesses that you’ve authorized to directly debit your account. Ask your new bank or credit union for an automatic payments authorization form that includes your new account information. Send this to the businesses on your list.
6. Set-up Online Bill Paying for Your New Account
If you like to pay bills online, set up bill payment information for your new account. Also, stop any automatic, recurring payments you have established through your old account.
7. Close Your Old Account
Once you have started receiving direct deposits into your new account and are sure that there are no outstanding checks or automatic debits that need to clear, close your old account. Warning: do not just withdraw the last dollar and assume the account will fade away on its own. Your old big bank may start charging you fees for having an empty or inactive checking account. Instead, follow the bank’s procedure for closing out the account.
Enjoy your new local banking relationship!
This checklist was produced by the New Rules Project’s Community Banking Initiative. Visit newrules.org for articles, graphs, studies, and more.
Please use the comments section to provide feedback on local banks and credit unions!
Also see the Facebook event and cause page.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
If you have spent time in the military or have parents who spent time in the military, their credit unions are very good. Pen Fed and USAA are just two of such organizations. And, no, nobody paid me to say this. But I have been paid in the sense that I’ve saved tons of cash by using a credit union.
I attended the mayoral debate tonight sponsored by the labor community coalition. The question I submitted (unasked) was if the candidates would transfer all of the City accounts from commercial banks that received a bailout and transfer those funds to a community bank or credit union.
While I was still working for the City, the payroll went through Bank of America and that is just a small part of all of the accounts. We should not only be moving our personal money, but demanding that the City and County move our collective money from the banks deemed too big too fail.
What would happen if the “too-big-to-fail” banks actually fail? Wouldn’t the result be fairly catostrophic?
As for credit unions, they have some of the best interest rates on loans. The Navy FCU rate on my truck is 1.99%. Far superior to the dealer rate.
USAA and NFCU are both very good.
The big banks need to be broken up, because yes, it is catastrophic if they fail -we’re stuck with the tab.
An apocryphal story from Occupy DC: when Ellen and I visited that encampment last week, a guy told us excitedly that he had been part of an informational picket outside a Wells Fargo branch a few blocks away from the Occupation. They were trying to convince people to withdraw their money and put it in an alternative, as the above post suggests. He claimed that after 3 or 4 people did just that . . . walk in and withdraw all their money . . . the WF branch closed down for the afternooon.
Definitely a tactic that gets on their nerves!!! . . . [we never got independent confirmation of that event, hence “apocryphal”]
congrats, you people will be making things worse! taking your money out of big banks will do is cause them to fire people to make up the lost income. Big banks like chase have hired over 13,000 people just in 2011 alone and have spent billions on new loans for people just like yourself. So I hope you all sleep well at night knowing that you are part of the problem not the solution.
Actually, the big banks continued to increase profits while laying off employees. Now that their profits are shrinking, they are yet again planning to layoff more employees. The CEO’s and shareholders are the ones who shouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
“…at least 650,000 consumers across the nation have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 (the day Bank of America unveiled its now-rescinded $5 monthly debit card fee). Also during that time, CUNA estimates that credit unions have added $4.5 billion in new savings accounts, likely from the new members and existing members shifting their funds.” http://tiny.cc/9c5a2
I’ve been telling friends, family for two years to move their finances to a credit union. However, the biggest chunk of naysayers against moving their money is the elderly — these are the people that had parents that lived through the Great Depression, the great savers of the fifties and sixties. They are complacent in their years that they’ve done business with the big conglomerates. Folks, if you have know people like that then you should educate them out of their “snow blindness”, this bunch are also holders of the biggest chunks of change so please get them to move their finances to a local credit union. Biggest reason – your money will be safer locally than in a huge scandalous bank. It would be wise to avoid a bank that “city governments” use. But
credit unions are a safe bet.
Anna’s 650,000 number is nice and easy for me. I can just add zeros according to the round numbers being withdrawn. Say the average person pulls $ 1, ooo. Sounds like a number that can be built upon. Look at it as an investment in a new era. De-invest in the crooks and “Big Leeches” to a system that (hopefully) won’t play fast and loose with our hard earned money. Crank it up for saturday.
Just heard the figure of 4.5 billion dollars on the boob tube. Maybe we can shift the same amount as the original bail-out. $700,ooo,ooo,ooo. A preliminary goal, just to prove a point.
General Electric GE Building 30 Rockefeller Plaza Rockefeller Center ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 18h
“NUCLEAR REFERENDUM USA: STOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR POWER IN THE US NOW!”
EDF LONDON (BRITISH ENERGY) 40 Grosvenor Place Victoria LONDON, UK
http://www.edfenergy.com ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
“NUCLEAR REFERENDUM UK: STOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR POWER IN THE UK NOW!”
TOUR AREVA, AREVA TOWERS, La Défense, PARIS – ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 18h
“NUCLEAR REFERENDUM FRANCE: STOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR POWER IN THE FRANCE NOW!”
Areva India Bangalore 11 Embassy Classic Building, India, ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva India Bhubneshwar 14th Forest Park Bhubaneswar, India, ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva India Chandigarh, Sco 222-223, Sector 34-a, Chandigarh, 160022, India, ANTI NUCLEAR DEMO EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva India Delhi Devika Towers 6 Nehru Place, India, ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva India Mumbai Narottam Morarji Marg, India, ANTI NUCLEAR DEMONSTRATION EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva T&D India Ltd, Tamil Nadu 601301, India, ANTINUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva India Kolkata D-2 Subhas Road, India, ANTINUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva India, M G Road, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva Japan Japón, Tokyo Minato Toranomon 1??16-4, +81 3-3597-8791 ?www.areva-np.com, ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva Poland, Strzegomska 23/27, 58-163 Swiebodzice, Polonia, ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Areva Turkey 320BarisMahallesi GuneyyanyolCaddesi Kocaeli Turquía +902626483300 ANTI ATOM DEMO Herzaman pazertesi saat Altida EVERY MON 18h
Areva Turkey Gaziosmanpasa Mh TahranCaddesi6 Ankara Turquía +903124664820 ANTI ATOM DEMO Herzaman pazertesi saat Altida EVERY MONDAY 18h
AREVA NORTH AMERICA, Washington, USA ANTINUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 18h
AREVA Lyon, FRANCE ANTINUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 18h
AREVA Finland Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant Finland ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm in front of Parlamento de Finlandia
Mannerheimintie 30 EDUSKUNTA Suomi Finland Ph 09 4321, http://www.eduskunta.fi
Rosatom, Moscow – ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 18h
“NUCLEAR REFERENDUM RUSSIA: STOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR POWER IN RUSSIA NOW!”
Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Earthquake Zone, California, USA – ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Earthquake Zone, California, USA – ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
South Texas Project, Earthquake Zone, Gulf Coast, USA – ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Waterford Steam Electric Station, Earthquake Zone, Louisiana, USA – ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Earthquake Zone, North Carolina, USA – ANTI NUCLEAR PROTEST EVERY MONDAY 6pm
PS: our observation is that Anti Nuclear Protests EVERY MONDAY 6pm is ideal……of course a second or a third Anti Nuclear Protest
on Friday 6pm, Sat 3pm, Sun 3pm is great as well….the more protests the better !!!
We fould having a “EVERY MONDAY 6pm Anti Nuclear Protest” for a start is a great asset to start with….all activists always meet Monday 6pm………
I like San Diego County Credit Union.
NFCU is a good one.
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