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Fee Increase Attempt Inspires 'Dump Your Bank Day'
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from CNN Money: "Customers are dumping their banks in droves ahead of the nationwide 'Move Your Money' and 'Bank Transfer Day' movements this Saturday. Given the recent spotlight on attempts — and ultimate failures — by some of the nation's biggest banks to tack on new debit card fees, thousands of disgruntled consumers have already either left or pledged to leave their current bank for a community bank or credit union, which are known for having fewer and/or lower bank account fees. ... At least 650,000 consumers have already joined credit unions since Sept. 29, the day Bank of America announced plans to impose its controversial $5 debit card fee, according to a nationwide survey of credit unions by the Credit Union National Association."
I moved to a credit union 15 years ago and never looked back. Good service and no ridiculous fees.
Credit Unions are part of networks. You are misinformed.
I last had a B of A account when I was 19. They had the highest credit card rates of any major bank in the country. I shopped around for a day and found a bank with an interest rate 7 points lower than theirs. I moved accounts and a few years later found a credit union with a rate 3 pts lower than the new bank. So I cut my rate from 19.8 to 9.9 just by not being too lazy to shop around. For some reason however, 19 out of 20 people I tell this story to have ump-teen superficial reasons why switching banks would be too much trouble. The truth of it is, they are complacent and lazy.
There shouldn't be even a single person complaining about the bank bailouts or Wall Street who still has an account with these money pimps. If you do business with them, you are an enabler and partially responsible for the bank meltdown of '08.
Peace, K1
Many credit unions are part of the CU Service Center and share ATMs and even teller services. My CU is in Seattle and I have deposited checks at CUs in Minnesota. Not true for all CUs, but many are part of this system.
And now in the process of changing all my credit cards now. New years resolution - no Chase, Citi, BoA, AmExpress ccards by the end of 2012. Well I need the AmEx for Costco, what to do? I just moved my carloan to the credit union. I'll have to do my mortgage next. Let's call it Occupy Credit?
Says someone who has clearly never belonged to a credit union.
This is an important sentimentality to reflect on. Banks and other businesses count on emotion and habit to keep our business even when their quality suffers. Does the BofA you see today reflect the values of Seafirst? Would your parents still recommend that you do business there? If you are feeling sentimental, frame your debit card after you close the account.
...but they'll get it in different ways. I just received the fees schedule for next year, and it isn't pretty. I started an account at my local credit union, and as soon as my paycheck direct deposit is setup, I'll be closing my account(s) with BofA. I won't give my money to a corporation that is recklessly investing my money when i deposit it, all while nickel-and-dimeing me to death.
I certainly do not like all the fees that banks have, but didn't B of A drop their plans for the fee? http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-to-drop-debit-card-fee-report-2011-11-01
I had heard of credit unions before, but I didn't know what they were and I didn't have sufficient interest to find out. I only researched it after this Bank of America incident. Now that I know, it's obvious to me that a credit union is better.
The difference is that credit unions are explicitly not-for-profit. Their main goal is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize member usefulness. That makes a really big difference.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
And VISA, MasterCard, et al. will continue to collect their money off of your credit card purchases. Sure it doesn't come out of your pocket directly, but it sure acts as pressure to retailers to raise prices. If you really want to do banks in, use cash for everything, but that seems to be downright prehistoric now days.
http://message.bankofamerica.com/debitcard/
credit unions tend to be very different from regular banks. It's owned directly by the people who put money into it. The people who bank there make the decisions on what happens. And they are not for-profit, so they can put all that extra loan income back into savings account interest rates.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
I agree, but sooner or later some major adjustment will have to be made to keep our current system viable. The wealth distribution is getting completely out of balance. If the greedy keep taking more and more, then eventually there will be enough young people under-employed or out of work with nothing to lose. When the hopeless and desperate members of our society reach a critical mass something will give.
Yep, they've put that $5 on hold for now.
But they'll look for different ways to stick you with additional fees.
They want to keep increasing revenue. And you're the source of that revenue.
On a related note, when you switch banks, make sure you know EVERYTHING about your transactions. Too many stories out there about how someone missed an automatic payment (annual or some other kind) and the bank re-opened their account, charged them and then charged them an overdraft fee. Even when the account was SUPPOSED to be closed.
I joined a Credit Union when I was 12, and that was a long time ago, indeed. I have never looked at a bank account set of terms and conditions that was not absolutely offensive and repulsive when compared to the Credit Union.
Once, about 20 years ago, when I lived in Miami and the nearest branch of my Credit Union was in Tampa, I opened a local account to be able to deposit my paychecks locally. That lasted about 6 months, during which time they charged fee after fee, and posted a $20 "computer error" in their favor to my account. Computer error, in 1991, from a bank? The computer made a mistake adding a column of numbers? "Sorry sir, we'll fix that." Yeah, you do that, and give me all my cash, NOW.
Perhaps it's not sentimentality as much as age of oldest active account, something that gets reported to the three major credit bureaus.
When the moveyourmoney.info campaign was in full swing. Bank of America flat out lied to me about my mortgage, defrauded me on escrow fees, and conned me on a car loan. It was so bad I wrote my congressman and senators as well as the BBB.I went so far as to refinance my house to sever all ties to that organization. For some reason, business culture from this country has gone from "take care of our customers" to "squeeze those suckers for every drop of blood, then if they pack up and leave try to kiss and make up."
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I'd long heard the advice about Credit Unions being a better bet than a bank, but honestly, I felt switching might be more hassle than it was worth. I knew Credit Unions had membership restrictions, for starters. (For instance, Navy Federal Credit Union pretty much requires you're either in the armed forces, or a family member of someone who is. That doesn't help me.)
I always tried to bank with smaller, local banks though, instead of any of the "mega banks". That strategy worked pretty well for me when the bigger ones went through a phase of eliminating "totally free checking" accounts, some years ago.
However, I tried to get refinanced on my car loan a couple years ago and found none of the banks were willing to help me at all -- even the one I have direct deposit with from my work, and hold both a checking and a savings account with. My rate was WAY too high and I wasn't asking the world ... just an opportunity to get a sane interest rate. That's when I decided to take a closer look at Credit Unions. I discovered one of the bigger ones had 2 convenient branches near my house AND was partnered up with most of the others in town, so you could use ATM machines belonging to ANY of them free of charge. Their only rules for becoming a member seemed to be based on you living in a zip code somewhat geographically close to their branches. A day later (since they had to have the bank manager review my situation and he was out for the day), I had my loan refinanced at a rate a full 10 percentage points lower than I was paying!
I switched my checking account over to a second Credit Union not long after that, and was paid over $100 in bonuses just to switch!
How many people here know the $5 debit card fee is a direct response to Congress stupidly passing a law that targeted only very large banks like BofA forcing them to cap how much they could charge as a processing fee to retailers. All smaller banks don't have that limit. This limit means only very large banks lose money on debit cards while smaller banks still make a good profit on them.
This is yet another example of the politicians passing self-serving laws then demonizing how people or businesses have to respond to those laws.
Now that BofA is dropping the $5 fee they will have to raise other fees like overdraft charges to make up for the money they are losing with debit cards.
I'm a currency collector and a WheresGeorge addict, so I visit banks very often, complete with unusual requests. So I suppose retail service is more relevant to me than others.
Do you have any problems with the folks at your credit union branch(es)? I honestly wouldn't know either way. CU's won't do even simple stuff for non-accountholders, so I don't have any experience with the personnel save for a negative impression. I have gotten accounts at some regular banks that I initially visited as a non-accountholder.
of all the issues with big banks, retail-location customer service doesn't seem to be one of them.
In general, the cheap version of something is sometimes satisfactory, sometimes not.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
They had a credit union at my last job, and I decided to use it, in part because I was going to be buying a house soon, and I assumed that a credit union would offer a better deal than a "regular" mortgage company.
I didn't find anything about the credit union that was better than what I was used to at regular banks, and when I applied for a mortgage, I discovered they had a "demand feature", which I had never seen before (this was my third time buying a house). For those who don't know, a demand feature means that the credit union could, at any time and for any or no reason, demand that I pay the mortgage in full.
When I asked them about it, they assured me that "everyone did it" and that they wouldn't actually do that even if they could and that I should just trust them and not worry about it.
I immediately dropped them and went to a regular mortgage company, which did not have a "demand feature" and offered a better rate. I later learned from other employees that the credit union had "called" mortgages of other employees when they missed a payment on their linked credit card.
So, don't assume that a credit union is better than a bank or other financial organization. Some may be, but others aren't. Caveat emptor!
No. Credit unions operate the way banks are supposed to, by keeping your money on deposit and investing it in the form of loans. They pay out a lower rate of interest (or "dividend" in CU parlance) on your deposited money than they charge on the money they lend out. So they make a bit of a profit (or "surplus" in not-for-profit parlance), but instead of raking in huge amounts via high interest and sneaky little fees and giving it to shareholders, they reinvest the money back into the credit union. That's why they're a better place to go to for loans than banks. They're not out to make money, they're out to give people access to credit and to help people save.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
My credit union charges me literally $0.01 for an overdraft.
I don't respond to AC's.
I was one of those lazy, complacent types. Until I actually talked to a rep from my local CU at an event-thing at my office. After hearing "9.75% interest on credit cards" and promptly picking my jaw up off the floor I signed up. Repeat with "2.75% car loan..." Went in, took care of the paperwork, no fees, no BS, and I got both usable paper and plastic for the checking account before I walked out the door. Wells can suck it.
Their main goal is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize member usefulness.
I was with a CU for a few years when they sent me a "check" over a few thousand dollars in the mail with a letter stating "you earned it". Cashing the check would have given me instant credit with very poor conditions (and at the same time it took them forever to clear my checks). I found that quite dishonest, not something I'd expect from a credit union that doesn't go for maximal profit but for usefulness.
Within a month I was with a different credit union. Lesson learned: Not-for-profit isn't enough. There are not-for-profit HMOs, where members never learn about or participate in internal decisions, but that have a well-paid CEO. And there are the same kind of credit unions that don't treat you much better than a for-profit bank would; usually they have their branches right at the mall or in the shopping center.
1. Federal government passes law that banks with over $10b in assets may not charge merchants as much as all banks have been charging for debit transactions.
2. Larger banks (the only ones affected by said law) impose a monthly, instead of per-transaction, fee to make up the difference, while smaller banks continue to charge merchants the same amount they were before.
3. Outrage is expressed by the uninformed and pundits who have an axe to grind, such as Consumers Union.
4. Larger banks lose customers to smaller banks, who will continue to charge merchants the same amount for debit transactions.
5. Larger banks reverse position on monthly fee but increase other fees in order to indirectly make up the difference.
Who exactly won? Thanks Dick Durban!
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
For all you servicemen and families of servicemen, USAA is a great institution. They offer 100% free checking - free bill pay, free checks, free debit cards with cash-back, and they refund ATM fees at the end of every month (even fees from non-USAA ATMs). Deposits can be done via smartphone, scanner or at your local UPS Store.
Even those with no relation or connection to the US Armed Forces are eligible for certain banking products, so if you're looking to drop your mega-bank I absolutely urge you to check out USAA's offerings. The lack of branches outside of San Antonio, TX can be a bit disappointing when you need to deposit cash, but the customer service is wonderful and I've never really even had a need to do anything in-person, anyway.
So where is the actual evidence the credit unions provide better cost/service than banks? I mean, banks want to maximize shareholder value, but maybe the best way to do that is to provide good service/low price. Where are the detailed comparisons which take into account all fees and all services?
Then how come every time things go wrong because of regulations that those politicians implemented, people call for those politicians to pass more regulations?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I do most of my banking at a small online bank. They have pretty good interest rates (much better than most banks), reimburse a few ATM fees a month (since realistically it's the only way I can get money from the account with them not having a local branch) and have free online bill payment for as many bills as I care to pay - a model I greatly prefer because then I control when payments go out.
So don't just consider credit unions, look around at internet banks - they can be every bit as good.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Last real credit union experience was with Nevada FCU in 2003. My payroll direct deposit would sometimes go at 1 or 2 pm. Any check presented before then would bounce out after I was charged $27. Yes, I shouldn't be writing checks until I had the money in my account. But, if you're broke sometimes you pay the rent on the 1st with a check knowing that it won't hit until the 2nd or 3rd when your pay check goes in.
So, $27 and a bounced check would cause me to get dinged by the apartment for another $50-75.
I wanted to switch TO BofA (my how times have changed) due to a previous experience with them, but thought it would be too hard. So, the next two times over the year where my paycheck would arrive a few days late, I would use a payday loan place that did daily interest. They were pretty good-$1/$100 per day. So, 600 for two days was $12-beats the hell out of $27+$75.
After some other nonsense where I got hit with a $27 fee for being exactly $0.15 overdrafted, I switched to BofA. A check could hit BofA at 2pm when there weren't funds, BUT as long as the account was positive by 6pm that day, nothing bounced and no fees were assessed. If I wrote a check to pay off a card and I saw it clear and realized that I put a different amount and would be overdrawn when it hit, I could go deposit cash before 6pm and avoid any fees.
Switching from a credit union to BofA potentially saved my broke ass several hundred dollars and a lot of stress. They also had no fee as long as I did 2 direct deposits a month vs. NV FCUs (small) $2/monthly fee.
For about 5 years my relationship with BofA was just fine. THEN, they raised my credit card interest rate from 10.9 to 18.99 without any real reason. I began paying it down and they raised the rate to 23.99. When I called for an explanation, they told me that the rate hike notice was in my statement and I missed the timeframe necessary to close the account and avoid the rate increase. The rate increase notice was on the last page of my PDF statement (I was paperless) and I didn't go that far in. Yes, my fault for not seeing.
So, I immediately switched to Citibank and began earning American Airline miles with my debit purchases and free checking with a direct deposit. I opened a second account and used it for BIllPay. They had the 6pm thing as BofA, so on the very rare occasion that I might be overdrawn, a deposit before 6pm kept me from getting dinged. They've been pretty good until about 6 months ago. My previously free checking was now $6/mo. unless I had >1500 in the account. The other account was now $9.50 unless I had >1500 in it as well. They are oh so nice enough to credit me 1.00 for direct deposit, another $1.00 for bill pay, etc.
Now they've cancelled the airline miles part of the debit card and turned one account into a flat, no exceptions $10/mo. fee. I've moved that account to ING Direct where I may earn some trivial amount of interest and pay no fess. I no longer live on the financial edge, I so I don't need the 6pm float and may move my main day-to-day debit card stuff to ING Direct as well, not sure yet. Either way, looking back, credit unions have cost me a lot more than banks in a lot less time.
The fact is that wells fargo and other large banks are investing into China's many businesses. Many of those are likely to go tits-up in this next year, leaving America holding the bag (and without ANY ability to sue in China or here).
OTH, Public Service Credit Union invests into American businesses. Why? Because they are local. In addition, they are trying harder. I like that. Now, if I could just get them to get off windows and move to *nix so that I do not have to worry about China, Russian, Al Qaeda, etc stealing the money directly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've never heard of that happening to a credit union. I doubt the members would stand for it in most cases. Why would they want their cost of banking going up?
On the other hand, I've seen a couple of cases where CUs got big enough and started acting like banks. CEFCU (formerly the Caterpillar Credit Union) in IL is one of the biggest in the country and nearly 20 years ago they started doing that crap where they charged extra fees to people who only had small balances. It pissed me off enough that I closed my account with them, despite being way beyond the minimum balance requirements.
A few years later when debit cards were just starting to become popular, TexIns (formerly the Texas Instruments Credit Union) started pushing debit cards on all of their members via the combo ATM/Debit card trick - unless you kicked up a fuss your ATM card was automatically enabled for debit usage too. My understanding is that such pushes were actually widespread in the CU community and usually accompanied with a bunch of evil PR to convince members it was actually a good thing. Anyone who was paying attention knew that debit cards were a bad deal for practically everyone -- a big fee generator with far less consumer protections than credit cards.
So it isn't easy, in fact it may even be illegal to formally co-opt a CU in the way the GP described, but sometimes they do end up being managed by execs with a bankster mindset.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Costal Credit Union has "public" membership if you get a North Carolina Consumers Council Membership for $18. Not completely free but anyone can qualify for that. They have a variety of shared ATMs in the area according to their location maps that you could do a majority of your banking with, and if you needed to visit an actual location, there isn't one all that far away.
I've been with credit unions for several years now; I keep around $5K in BoA for convenience sake, but keep most of my liquid cash in credit unions. My credit unions don't insist on treating me like a criminal by fingerprinting me if I dare cash a check, they don't dehumanize services by refusing to let me talk to decision makers, don't nickel-and-dime me for services like BoA does. The down side to a credit union is there are fewer branches and fewer ATMs, so if I am out of town and need cash to dine or shop somewhere that doesn't accept AmEx, I have my BoA account for convenience. However, I'm seriously considering punting BoA altogether and just carry more cash instead.
One huge, huge benefit of credit unions is the ability to talk to decision makers, and have them check business and personal references if you have limited credit history. About ten years ago when I started my business, I made a huge, huge mistake: I closed my personal credit accounts, and built up corporate credit. I did not have a single credit line for personal use, and I needed a loan. So, I went to the banks and was turned down for a loan by several banks (citing the lack of credit history - if you go without using credit for 7 years, your credit record is "scolled out"), and couldn't talk to a decision maker. So, I went to a credit union and they turned me down at first, so I worked my way up the food chain and talked to decision makers. They checked my personal and business references, and I was able to get financing. I ended up moving a decent chunk of funds to that credit union.
Now, interesting thing: one of the banks I went to has financed several cars for one of my friends. He has horrible, horrible credit; he has had a home forclosed on, three vehicles repossessed, and they granted him another car loan shortly before I went to speak with that same rep. His interest rate sucked, but he was able to get financing. I asked about it, mentioning my friend by name and asking why with his irresponsible history he was granted financing, but with my responsible history I couldn't. His response? "He has credit. You don't." So I asked "So, you are telling me a bad credit history is better than no credit history?" His response was yes. That just pissed me off - and that kind of thinking is exactly why so many banks have needed bailout courtesy of us taxpayers.
Fuck banks. We never should have bailed them out.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I am on the board of a credit union. Credit unions must make a profit or they will die. They must have some fee structure to offset costs of members who are expensive to service. The idea is that fees should be minimized to the extent that the CU can run a healthy business in accordance with its mission.
Since it is a non-profit, the board is unpaid. We are members who volunteer our time. We must make decisions in the interest of the membership as a whole and that means working with the executive staff on decisions related to which services we can provide to the members and how those services will be paid for.
The distinguishing difference between a credit union and a bank is that banks can raise capital in the open markets by issuing shares, issuing debt, or taking on risky bets in the form of loans and investments.
Credit unions, on the other hand, can maintain capital only through profits from loans, investments, and certain income like fees and interchange fees. The investment side is tightly controlled. Investments are boring - bonds, CDs, money markets. The best income is from loans.
There are good credit unions and bad ones. When the bad ones go under, the credit unions are collectively assessed via the NCUSIF (in most cases) to make the the depositors whole. Or the NCUA works with the failing credit union to merge them into a healthier one. But we are all collectively responsible for each other in a small way -- yet we compete against each other and banks too.
Even though I've been with the same credit union for 22 years (and now on the BOD for 3 so far), I don't label "credit unions = good, banks = bad." I also have an account with ING Direct and had excellent customer service - all by phone, mail and email - for a mortgage a few years ago.
Do your homework and figure out what you need and talk to people you trust. Don't think that you are necessarily constrained by a credit union. You might not be. It depends.
The banks are NOT "losing money" because of these rules. They are still turning a profit. A huge profit.
They ARE "losing profit".
That being, they are NOT making as huge a profit as they could be making if they were allowed to charge whatever the market had to bear.
Here's an easy example:
"Losing money" is when you build a game console for $100 and sell it for $50. You LOSE $50 on each transaction.
The banks are NOT losing any money on these transactions. Each transaction is still TURNING A PROFIT for the banks.
But the banks want BIGGER PROFITS.
I have had so many problems with Bank of America it's not even funny. They don't understand the words "close my account." After I get fed up with them nickel and dimeing me to death, I closed my account with them. I moved everything over to my new bank, but forgot to delete my debit card from paypal. Bad move. Six months later, my wife bought something on ebay and selected the debit card by accident. Not only did they let the charge go through, the tried to charge me overdraft fees galore. They even proceeded to send me letters threatening to turn me over to some agency so I would be banned from opening a checking account with any major bank. Remember, this is SIX MONTHS after I had them "close" that account. I will NEVER open an account with them again.
No. Amex has one of the WORSE credit card rates - their rates are consistently higher than Visa or Mastercard. Amex sees themselves as a "premier" card and want to ensure their card is only accepted at places that are more lifestyle-related. So Visa/MC is accepted everywhere, and Amex in fewer places but often in places like restaurants and hotels and the like.
A small retailer wanting Amex can easily be dinged 5% for Amex, versus 2-3% for Visa/MC. Plus the per-transaction fees are higher for them.
As for cash discount - it only really works for mom and pop shops - where handling cash is cheaper than credit cards. But larger businesses can start having significant cash handling charges - from extra training of cashiers (all the cash handling needs to be taught to ensure the balance comes out right) to simply having to deposit those huge wads of cash at a bank (depending on the store, it may mean an armored car has to be hired which can cost $1000 easily. If you're depositing $30k, that's the 3% credit card fee right there).
The narrative of the last 30 years has been: deregulation, things get much worse fo the lower and middle class, bankers convince people that the problem is still too much regulation, more deregulation, things get even worse, bankers blame the remaining regulation, more deregulation still, things get even worse, and on and on.
Now that doesn't mean that all regulation is good, but the only thing worse than bad regulation on the finance sector is no regulation at all.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Why has that word replaced customers?
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Yes, that has been the narrative. But the actual fact is that banks are under more regulations today than they were 30 years ago. What happens is that there is "deregulation" where they replace not very onerous, but useful regulations with regulations that are more expensive to demonstrate compliance with. The result of this is that smaller banks cannot afford to demonstrate that they are in compliance with the regulations and merge with larger banks until now we have several banks which are "too large to fail".
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were two of the loudest voices resisting reformation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when it became obvious to those with a bit of foresight that the housing market was a bubble that was going to pop. Then when it did and brought down the whole financial sector, they were the two chosen to draft the "reforms" to "keep it from happening again."
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I'm in Argentina. 6 years ago I was trying to get a credit card - I had been working (independent, not as an employee, but as a registered taxpayer) for over 2 years, and had a savings account with money, was paying bills using their online service, etc.
I was turned down by EVERY bank, citing I didn't have any credit history, so I couldn't get a credit card. They all told me if I was an employee of a company that was using the bank to pay the salaries, they would give me a credit card, but otherwise, I needed to build credit somewhere before I could ask for a credit card.
Other banks didn't want to say "no", but didn't want to give me the card either. So they asked for ridiculous things. One demanded 3 years of tax history (flawless, not a late payment ever), and a car AND house to my name (this bank now runs ads on tv claiming "their most valued capital are people"). Another bank (HSBC) wanted me to keep a deposit over USD 30.000 for several months until they would give me a credit card with a $2.000 limit...
I finally got the card with a bank (Santander) that was expanding at the time, they just required 6 months of tax, which is much more reasonable. A few months after that, every bank was calling to offer a credit card. It was so good to tell them "no" like they did with me.
So it isn't easy, in fact it may even be illegal to formally co-opt a CU in the way the GP described, but sometimes they do end up being managed by execs with a bankster mindset.
When has "illegal" been a sure stop? If the executives, under whatever influence, decide to appoint a consultant to put forth a conversion proposal, and the members are persuaded to go with the conversion (which is in the consulants' interest), within the rules of the CU's charter, conversion can happen legally, ultimately at a loss to members, and profit to the acquirer.
And yes, Credit unions can convert to bank charters, although it has been rare in the past , see CU Financial Services.
See... FRBSF Economic Letter, Credit Unions, Conversions, and Capital , Credit Union Conversions to Banks: Facts, Incentives, Issues, and Reforms.
A mass exodus to credit unions could change matters greatly, as the members who have the most $$$ tied up, could begin to see opportunities from the mass importation of financially unsavvy members joining, to provide the CU as a whole great opportunity for exploitations.
And the loss of $$$ to banks would give then a great incentive to want to join / become a "partner" in a credit union.
Meanwhile as the CU struggles with growing pains due the importation of members and requires more scalability and more resources to provide service, for-profit models become more enticing, as they provide more capital towards that end.... P.S. and more capital to pay executive bonuses