Bank Transfer Day haul: 40,000 members, $80M in deposits
Though final numbers likely won’t be available until the National Credit Union Administration releases call report data for the fourth quarter, an initial survey by the Credit Union National Association projects that its members brought in 40,000 new members and $80 million in savings account funds on Nov. 5, the target date for an online movement that encouraged consumers to transfer their accounts from major banks to nonprofit credit unions.
According to CUNA, the so-called “Bank Transfer Day” capped a month in which credit unions added roughly 650,000 new members and $4.5 billion in new savings. The jump in membership, which followed announcements (largely, since withdrawn) by some major banks that they would begin charging fees to debit card users, topped the total number of new members added in 2010. Credit unions saw an average of 20,000 new members from Sept. 29 through Nov. 4 before doubling that pace on Nov. 5.
In addition, CUNA’s survey of 1,100 credit unions found that 80% of large credit unions added new members on Nov. 5, with many featuring special or extended Saturday hours to accommodate the flow. CUNA also reported that credit unions it surveyed reported making $90 million in new loans on Nov. 5 alone.
In Missouri, the local Missouri Credit Union Association reported its members have, over the past six weeks, added 7,100 new members and seen $49 million in new deposits.
However, credit unions in some other areas described the event as uneventful. In San Antonio, where roughly half of the population already are credit union members, the marketing director of United SA Federal Credit Union told the Express-Times that Saturday was a “pretty slow” day and that they “did not have any new accounts as a result of somebody coming in and saying, ‘I’m transferring my account due to Bank Transfer Day.’”
