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Reports on the participation in the November 5th Bank Transfer Day have been coming in. Bank Transfer Day was the Facebook-driven campaign that urged people to close their megabank accounts and move their money to credit unions and community banks. It became popular after the megabanks introduced new debit card fees. According to Credit Union National Association (CUNA):
Credit unions brought in 40,000 in new members, and added $80 million in new savings account funds, on last Saturday's Bank Transfer Day, capping a month that resulted in nearly 700,000 new credit union members joining the movement.
Last week CUNA had stated that credit unions gained $4.5 billion in deposits during the month before Bank Transfer Day. That's a good start, but as I showed in my review of the largest banks and credit unions, it's going to take a lot more to get the megabanks down to a more reasonable size.
Even though Bank Transfer Day is over, it's not too late to move your money. Many credit unions and community banks still have active new-account promotions. I reviewed some of these on Thursday. Here's a list of my recent bank bonus posts, and you can review all available bonuses in our bank promotions page.
Some people may choose not to leave their megabanks due to the conveniences they provide. Also, some may think they won't be able to qualify for membership into a credit union. I reviewed these concerns in this Friday post.
"Because banks stand to lose revenues when the interchange fee rule becomes effective, they may raise fees – either on consumer bank accounts more broadly, or specifically on debit cards – to recover their losses."
How are they going to do that? Stavins:
"Any price changes may take the form of reduced rewards on debit cards or increased fees, either in a form of fixed term fees or as variable per-transaction fees. Fixed one-time fees are more likely to affect the adoption of a payment method, while per-transaction fees are more likely to affect the use of payment methods."
We know from other studies that young, low-income and less educated consumers are the ones relying most heavily on debit cards, partly because they have no access to credit. So at the end the issuers will manage to at worse recoup their losses, the merchants will be net winners as well and those consumers who can least afford it will be net losers from the interchange reform. http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/young-less-educated-and-low-income-consumers-most-affected-by-higher-debit-cost