A day of action: Progressives across the country use Bank Transfer Day to go bankless

As reg­u­lar read­ers know, we at NPI have been long­time cham­pi­ons of mem­ber-owned cred­it unions, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the eco­nom­ic col­lapse of Sep­tem­ber 2008 and the sub­se­quent bank bailout. NPI’s staff and board belong indi­vid­u­al­ly to dif­fer­ent cred­it unions, and NPI itself is a cred­it union member.

NPI became part of Amer­i­ca’s cred­it union move­ment well before the fail­ure of Lehman Broth­ers, the sale of Mer­rill Lynch, the seizure of WaMu, the pas­sage of the bank bailout, or the Wall Street bonus­es flap. We did so because we believe in walk­ing our talk. It’s part of our over­ar­ch­ing phi­los­o­phy. To us, pro­gres­sivism isn’t just about polit­i­cal action; it’s about eco­nom­ic action and social action as well.

By mov­ing our mon­ey from banks to cred­it unions, we can all live more pro­gres­sive­ly. Cred­it unions are not-for-prof­it finan­cial coop­er­a­tives that exist to serve their mem­bers. They are run by vol­un­teer board of direc­tors. Since there are no out­side stock­hold­ers to pay, all prof­its can be returned to mem­bers in the form of low­er fees, bet­ter rates, and supe­ri­or service.

It’s heart­en­ing to see so many oth­er peo­ple final­ly choos­ing to break up with their banks and make the switch. Today, an event was held across the Unit­ed States called Bank Trans­fer Day, in which groups of peo­ple joined togeth­er to close their back accounts and move their mon­ey to cred­it unions.

By all accounts, Bank Trans­fer Day was a success.

BECU, Wash­ing­ton’s largest cred­it union, report­ed that six hun­dred and fifty nine peo­ple opened accounts at its finan­cial cen­ters today — a new record for a Sat­ur­day. BECU mem­ber­ship, which is open to all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, has been grow­ing rapid­ly late­ly, with three straight months of record signups.

Spe­cif­ic Bank Trans­fer Day events were held in all of the Pacif­ic North­west­’s major cities. Most of those leav­ing banks — includ­ing a num­ber of Occu­py pro­test­ers — were break­ing up with Chase or Bank of Amer­i­ca in particular.

Chase and Bank of Amer­i­ca, along with Wells Far­go and U.S. Bank, held more than half of bank deposits in Wash­ing­ton alone as of the end of June of this year. The state’s cred­it unions, com­bined, held approx­i­mate­ly twen­ty per­cent of the total share of deposit at the same juncture.

Here’s a roundup of sto­ries about Bank Trans­fer Day that may be of interest:

• Bank Trans­fer Day brings major protests & big deposit mov­ing in Eugene (KMTR)
• Local Chase man­ag­er was des­per­ate (Dai­ly Kos diarist m0ng0)
• A Home­town BofA Protest in The Dalles, Ore­gon (Dai­ly Kos diarist jgilhousen)
• Anoth­er strong day for Occu­py Seat­tle (The Stranger)
• Occu­py Seat­tle calls for sup­port­ers to break up with their banks (Q13 Fox)
• Amer­i­cans urged to ‘break up’ with big banks Sat­ur­day (KING 5)
• Big bank defec­tors trick­le into cred­it unions (The Columbian)

We at NPI extend our con­grat­u­la­tions to every­one who broke up with a big, greedy Wall Street bank today. Those who’ve switched are about to dis­cov­er the joy of belong­ing to a mem­ber owned cred­it union.

Remem­ber, all the major Wall Street banks — Wells Far­go, Bank of Amer­i­ca, JPMor­gan Chase, and U.S. Bank — were donors to Tim Eyman’s I‑1053 last year, which gives Repub­li­can state leg­is­la­tors uncon­sti­tu­tion­al veto pow­er over state bud­gets. No pro­gres­sive should be doing busi­ness with a Wall Street bank, period.

If you need help mak­ing the switch your­self, check out findacreditunion.com, or the Pro­gres­sive Change Cam­paign Com­mit­tee’s Banx­o­dus site.