Move Your Money

Move Your Money is a decentralized campaign to educate and empower people and organizations to move their money from "too big to fail" financial institutions. The campaign asserts that financial giants and have crippled the global economy, and an individual should "move their money" to a smaller community bank or credit union as an ethical decision to protest the financial elite's massive corruption.

The original campaign was created by media-mogul Arianna Huffington, economist Rob Johnson, and filmmaker Eugene Jarecki,^[1] and has since sparked a national phenomenon and encouraged many off-shoots, such as Bank Transfer Day. It is estimated that over 9.6 million people have moved their money from large financial institutions since the start of the campaign in late 2009.^[2][3]

Campaigns

• Move Your Money Project^[4]
  • The Move Your Money project is a nonprofit campaign that encourages individuals and institutions to divest from the nation's largest Wall Street banks and move to local financial institutions.
• Move Our Money US^[5]
  • Move Our Money is a project powered by "The New Bottom Line" and "The Other 98%".

Zip code based searches for smaller banks

• Move Your Money Project^[6]
• NYTimes story on "Websites for choosing a new bank"^[7]
• A Smarter Choice^[8]
• Nerd Wallet^[9]
• Banxodus^[10]

Credit Union National Association

• CUNA,^[11] based in Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin, is the premier national trade association serving America's credit unions.
• Commercial Banks & Credit Unions - Facts, Fallacies, and Recent Trends Research Report^[12]
• Frequently requested US Credit Union / Commercial Bank Comparisons^[13]
• Detailed financial analysis of credit unions in the US^[14]

Move your money actions

• August 12, 2011 in St Louis a group of eight people were seeking to remove their money from a BofA branch. The SWAT team was called in and barricaded the branch, denying the customers their right to remove their money and blocking access to other BofA customers.
  • YouTube video^[15]
  • Quote from one of the people wanting to move their money: "They would not let me get past that barricade, where those three guys are. I talked to the lieutenant of the St. Louis Police Department - and he said they [customers?] don't have a legal right - but he was going to try to work out something, a symbolic gesture where eight people to pull out their money, I being one of them. He came back later and said they [BofA] will not go along with that. You will have to withdraw your money online."^[16]
  • Detailed blog post about the incident^[17]

• October 2011 at a Bank of America branch in Santa Cruz, the manager locked two customers inside a branch as they were trying to close their accounts, and then called the police on them. Supposedly, this was because they were wearing signs. When the police showed up, they didn't arrest anyone, and were just as baffled as the customers.
• YouTube video.^[18] The bank manager is heard in the video saying "You cannot be a protester and a customer at the same time."
• Blog article^[19] about the incident.
• Southern California clergy leaders representing 30,000 people from churches, synagogues, and mosques pledged to move $2 million and end a collective 200 years of business with Bank of America and Wells Fargo.^[20]
• In October 2011, Father Samaniego announced the divestment of the parish and its school’s accounts, amounting to $3 million, from Bank of America and deposited the funds with a local credit union.^[21]
  • YouTube^[22] of the press conference
• Austin, TX's city council has unanimously approved a measure starting a process to consider moving their money from BofA into more community banking options^[23]
  • The resolution^[24]
  • A more detailed news story^[25]
• Occupy Maui presents a list of ten reasons residents should move their money from BofA^[26]
• Personal story^[27] from a BofA customer who removed their money from the bank.
• Daily Kos^[28] Ten stories of people moving their money, despite bank efforts to stop them
• December 2011, Chicago-based Lakeview Action Coalition^[29] members commit to move $218,000 of their money from Chase and Bank of America accounts to community banks and credit unions.^[30]
• Credit unions and traditional bank alternatives
  • CNN's Money 101 explains^[31] several alternative banking options. "You can bank without a bank, here is how"

References

External links

• Move Your Money short film on YouTube
• Bank dumping: Do the megabanks even care?
• Eugene Jarecki Move Your Money, Monday January 11, 2010 on The Colbert Report
• Move Your Money: A New Year's Resolution by Arrianna Huffington and Rob Johnson