Move Your Money day

[usernamenumber]

Today is Move Your Money Day.

Today preraphaelite and I are going to Cambridge Savings Bank, where I'm going to open a personal account, we're going to open a shared account for housing expenses, and I'm then going to move my money from BofA to CSB.

And yet I want to be clear about something: I don't have a solid enough understanding of the financial crisis to say how culpable BofA is in it, and frankly I think a lot of the people who boil everything down to "the banks" (what does that even mean?) being to blame for such a complex problem don't either. I've also had no problem with BofA in terms of fees, customer service, etc. In fact, they've been great and I'm bracing for the switch to CSB because I doubt that their web banking is going to be anywhere near as good, and I'm really going to miss having an Android app for moving money between accounts.

So, why am I doing this? Two reasons:

1) Something that Move Your Money Day made me think about is how I always try to patronize local, independent businesses before big chains, and wonder why I don't apply the same principle to banking. I always go to the Porter Books cafe instead of Panera in Porter Square, so why do I bank at BofA when CSB is literally around the corner from preraph's place?

2) Even if I'm not 100% behind the reasons, with over 100,000 people pledging so far to move their money, it's my hope that if all of those and more follow through, it will serve as a potent reminder that people can organize, and they can and will vote with their feet and their dollars when businesses behave badly (and while I think "the banks did it" is a gross oversimplification, I'm under no illusion that BofA is above reproach). I figure anything that reminds big businesses that customers can, collectively, be big too can only have a positive effect.

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

GOOD FOR YOU! I've been encouraging people to move to local banks. I'd move too, but my money has already been at a local credit union for 12 years (MIT FCU). So glad you're making good use of local financial resources!

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

I think it's kind of ironic that "Move Your Money Day" is on a Saturday, on which day most banks aren't open.

Other than that, yeah, I dunno. I use BofA, too. Not sure who I'd switch to if I switched, though.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Yay.

One thing BoA's done is, for example, foreclose on people who weren't behind, or whose houses they DIDN'T OWN. So...getting away from them is good in any case.

[real-green-tea.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to be contrary but I've actually had consistently positive experiences throughout most of my time at BofA. Compared to pretty much every other business I've patronized over the last, oh, ten years, they have pretty excellent customer service, you can find many of your answers online, and there are many ways to get in touch to find the answers you want or to have someone help you with your banking needs. I like the alerts they provide on all my cards.
Yeah, I was a bit peeved when I was charged for going under my minimum of my savings account a few years back, but I think every bank has a minimum and charges you for that, so, no big. I never get charged ATM fees if I use a BofA ATM, and when there isn't one near me, I take cash out at, like, the grocery store.
I don't have too many choices for where to do all my banking in one place right now, but even if I did, I'd be hard pressed to be convinced to move without sufficient assurance that customer service would be equal or better. I don't think my needs would be met by a smaller institution. I just don't think they have the resources to provide the level of service I've grown accustomed to.

Usually I'm a fan of small and local, but this is one of those things that would be really difficult to make an equivalent substitution.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

In general I agree with you about service, and as I said I've had no problems with BofA on the front. In fact, I moved there from Wainwright because their web banking was just not up to what I needed.

However, for what it's worth, I've heard nothing but great things about CSB, and so far I've been happy. They even have an Android app, which was one of those things I'd thought that only big banks would have, so I think that on a lot of these fronts the small local banks are catching up. CSB will even reimburse me the ATM fees when I use another bank's ATM, so I'll be paying less in ATM fees than I was with BofA.