Here’s one of my most favorite statistics of the last few years. In the past 90 days, since “Bank Transfer Day” in November, 5.6 million people have moved their money out of banks. 610,000 cited Bank Transfer Day as the reason.

If you needed any more of a reason to move your money, consider that many firms, such as Bank of America, have turned the truly indigent into profit centers, by making money off of debit card fees for unemployment benefits.

This is what I did yesterday. I participated in Bank Transfer Day by opening an account at a local credit union. But I only put a trivial amount into the account, and will then wire my money over electronically from Bank of America after being assured that all charges have cleared on that account. I’ve been a BofA customer, through sheer inertia, since 1998. Business was pretty brisk at the credit union, and the bank manager said it’s been that way for the last month (we do know from statistics provided by the Credit Union National Association that credit unions have added 650,000 new members with $4.5 billion in deposits since September 29, when Bank of America announced their since-abandoned debit card fee). When I said I was transferring from BofA, the bank manager smiled knowingly.

Tens of thousands of Americans moved their money out of Big Banks into smaller banks or credit unions yesterday. The action was part of “National Bank Transfer Day.” The action mostly hinged upon individuals going into banks to close out their accounts with banks like Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc, but there [...]

On September 29, Bank of America announced its now-defunct debit card fee. Since that time, according to the Credit Union National Association, 650,000 Americans have moved their money to credit unions. That’s more in a little over a month than in all of 2010 combined. And that’s just credit unions, it doesn’t count community banks. And it doesn’t count what will happen tomorrow, on Bank Transfer Day… I’m sorry, I mean Chase Pride Day.

Meanwhile, the banks are preparing as well. I’ve obtained some email correspondence from a branch manager at a Chase bank in Manhattan. They’re apparently experimenting with some rebranding: “Our branch partners need our awareness & support – let’s help make sure Bank Transfer Day becomes Chase Pride Day!”

The New Bottom Line, which has been focused on anti-bank actions around foreclosures and Wall Street greed, has launched a “Move Our Money” campaign, which encourages local governments to divest their funds from big banks. In over 50 cities across the country, coalition members will press for legislation to move local government funds. November 5 is move your money day.

I agree with Zandar on this one. “Unless one of the ways B of A is planning to have customers avoid the fee is ‘are you a customer?’ then the damage is already done.” Like Netflix before them, BofA screwed with their ordinary customers, not the ones meticulously tracking how they’re illegally foreclosing on people or how they get free money shoveled at them by the Federal Reserve. They alienated everyone who has one of their debit cards.

When ordinary citizens take their savings out of big banks, it has a small effect, but it would take lots and lots of take-up for that to really hurt those behemoth financial institutions which have such market share. By contrast, when a municipality, particularly a large municipality, moves their money out of a big bank, that can have an impact on behavior. This is particularly true if the municipal governments cite specific reasons, like a failure to modify mortgages for their constituents or a failure to maintain dilapidated, foreclosed properties, for moving the funds.

Over the weekend, as Occupy Wall Street protests escalated, the video of a woman arrested at a Citibank branch for trying to close her account shot through the blogosphere. It wasn’t even the only example of people being denied the opportunity to close their bank accounts over the weekend. And a similar incident occurred two months ago.