Occupy Your Credit Union! A Tactic for Activist Members

    While the financial crisis and economic malaise of the past few years has been truly devastating, one silver lining has been the development of increased awareness of the democratic cooperative model of financial services embodied by the credit union movement. Hundred of thousands of people responded to the call to "move your money" around Bank Transfer Day, and both the rate of growth and the stature of the credit union movement is higher than it has been in a very long time.

    All of this is very exciting! However, it only represents the first step in achieving a just financial system. Being a credit union member is not basically the same as being a bank customer who gets better rates and fewer fees; rather, at its core, credit union membership means that you own your bank. With that ownership comes not simply a claim to your fair share of the profits that Bank of America would otherwise have shipped off to its shareholders, but the right to have an equal say in determining the policies and priorities of your credit union.

Bank Transfer Day: A Model Victory for the Occupy Movement

Frustrated by a number of negative experiences involving her bank, LA gallery owner Kristen Christian decided to draw the line on October 4th, 2011, when she created a Facebook event entitled "Bank Transfer Day." Calling for people to move their money from banks to credit unions on November 5th, the action quickly went viral. By the intended date, more than 70,000 people had indicated their intent to participate on the Facebook event page, and the Credit Union National Association estimated that more than 650,000 new accounts were opened in the month before November 5th (more than had been set up in the entirety of 2010), and a further 40,000 people joined on the day itself.

When trying to explain this phenomenon, the dominant narrative coming out of both the credit union movement and the mainstream media as a whole is that Bank Transfer Day was primarily a reaction to the decision by large banks (most visibly Bank of America) to institute debit card fees. This ham-handed and poorly-executed policy change, the story goes, struck a nerve and instigated normally passive banking consumers to take Christian's call to heart by revolting en masse and moving their money to credit unions.

Bank Transfer Day, Populism, and the Strategy of the Credit Union Movement

After 27 year-old LA gallery owner Kristen Christian created the virally spreading "Bank Transfer Day" Facebook event in early October as a response to some infuriating experiences with her bank, a fascinating conversation has been taking place within the credit union movement. On the one hand, many are quite excited to see the burst of positive media attention that the event instigated. They eagerly hope that, in the short term, the tens of thousands of people who have RSVPed on Facebook will follow through on their intentions and deliver a wave of new members to credit unions. From a longer, more strategic perspective, the aspiration is that, by spreading awareness of the credit union model, the event will contribute to fundamentally and positively advancing the movement's place in the world of financial services.