The Huffington Post is kicking off a Move Your Money campaign, an effort to get consumers to abandon the big money center banks for smaller community institutions in 2010. You know what? As a customer of both BAC and WFC, I’m gonna think that one over.
The problem for anyone contemplating such a move is two fold. One, the massive transition costs of making the change in sheer time and effort. And two, finding a safe — or at least safer — place to land with the kind of services you want.
Many of the small community banks which are candidates for a switchover might have big exposures in the contracting commercial real estate sector, and few offer the range of online services, ATMs, cards, accounts, etc. that the zombie banks use to rake in service fees. Still, it seems a good time to take a look around and see if a change is in order.