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Guest Post: Update On The "Move Your Money" Campaign From IRA's Dennis Santiago
Submitted by Damien Hoffman at Wall St. Cheat Sheet
A few months ago, Dennis Santiago from Institutional Risk Analytics
catapulted from financial tech wizard to media celebrity. Dennis was
tapped by The Huffington Post team (Disclosure: I am a contributor to
the Huffington Post) to mastermind an effort to help disgruntled bank
customers move their money to local banks or credit unions.
I caught up with Dennis to get an update on one of the most explosive grassroots movements of 2010 …
Damien Hoffman: Dennis, what’s the current status of the Move Your Money Campaign?
Dennis: We’ve started doing a series of tests to see how much of the
country has looked at the Move Your Money tools. At this point we see
28,000 out of 42,000 zip codes being searched in a little under sixty
days.
Damien: Wow. That’s great for a grassroots campaign.
Dennis: It’s nominally approaching seventy five percent of the zip
codes, but I discount that back somewhat because sometimes people do a
wild card search or a little bit of duplication. What’s interesting is
we looked at how many zip codes contained banks or big branches, and
there are only 21,000 of those. So, it’s possible people using the Move
Your Money tools have pretty much canvassed the entire universe of
banking in the United States.
Damien: How about the traffic stats?
Dennis: At the very beginning the traffic rates were enormous. The
main Move Your Money site itself was running 250,000 uniques a day. We
were tracking individual zip code search transactions at the rate of
about 60,000 a day.
That rate dropped down to about 30,000 a day during low periods.
However, every time somebody went on television the traffic would jack
up back to about 50,000-60,000 for that particular day.
Damien: How are all those people contributing to the movement now?
Dennis: Interestingly, the movement is morphing. If you look at the
Move Your Money concept, it’s actually a very well crafted voice that
erupted at the beginning of the year. However, it is based on a series
of other movements and attempts by grassroots people to find ways to
make a difference primarily in the concept of taking your money and
investing it more locally.
There have been a number of invest local movements that have come
out in the last year or so. Congruent with the credit crisis, people
at the grassroots level have been saying, “If all that stuff is going
on up there, what’s our best strategy at the local level?” This has
been about ordinary people to making a statement about their money.
During the initial wave, we saw a lot of people shifting smaller
checking accounts over to local banks or credit unions. Now, our
surveys are showing the banks are beginning to see people with
substantial amounts beginning to take action. They needed some time to
prepare to move more assets, but that’s beginning to happen. There are
several banks now reporting that they’re seeing five-figure,
six-figure, in some cases seven-figure transfers.
This is very different in character from the earlier “I just want to
open a checking account to make a political statement phase.” Now we’re
seeing larger, smarter money making moves.
In addition, the movement is morphing even further in that you have
state, county and municipal governments now considering whether they
can take advantage of something like this. They want to shift their
operating and investment accounts from national banks to local ones.
This will create an acceleration effect on their local economy by
causing their money to circulate locally.
That’s actually a very powerful and classic economic amplifier if a
dollar shifts around inside a local neighborhood before it drifts off
to the global economy. That’s just very good for local economies.
Damien: Are there any states taking the lead yet?
Dennis: The one that moved quickest is New Mexico. They are
considering legislation that would cause all of their operating
accounts to have to be deposited and operated with banks that operate
within the state.
Damien: That’s great news for local economies. Has this improved the image for local bankers?
Dennis: Yes. The little banks have reacted to it very positively
because for the last year and a half their main complaint has been,
“I’m a very hard working local banker focused on my business. Why does
everybody think I’m as bad and nasty as the big banks that are
suffering from investment banking and commercial banking practices?”
This really gave small banks a boost in terms of their self image.
Damien: Does that still contrast with public images for
larger banks even though we’re moving farther away from the heart of
the crisis?
Dennis: Large banks have very large scale problems they’re
attempting to deal with. There is the investment banking side of
things which has an image problem. Then, there’s the commercial or main
street banking operations. They’re not quite sure what to do about
these businesses yet.
Damien: Has the Move Your Money campaign increased competition for the big banks?
Dennis: The intensity of competition in banking has always been
pretty intense. Although the Move Your Money campaign is increasing
competition, I think big banks have always been very focused on winning
in territories where they establish branches.
There are some banks that are tying to broaden their base because
they’ve taken over fairly large failed institutions. Now they’re trying
to recover the customer base as opposed to seeing them filter off to
the smaller banks. If I were a big guy, I would keep my mouth shut and
just watch so I could figure out what my next business move would be.
Damien: Well, Dennis, we’ll check in with you again to see
how things unfold over the next several months. Thanks for taking the
time to give us a clearer picture of a very successful grassroots
movement.
Dennis: My pleasure. I look forward to speaking again soon.
Lear more about the Move Your Money campaign
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Now here is yet another reason to look at Jan 2012 put options on the banks. Cheap vol and lots of time. If their capital bases from depositors go down at continued pace, then they will a) have to increase Tier One and either dilute stockholders b) sell mark to model assets or c) sell off parts of their business.
And of course, the other reasons to buy the puts is what we think earnings might be by then and where the broad market will be.
Something that I would like to add that is rarely (maybe never) discussed is "the customer". Granted, being an old fashioned business person with old fashioned ideas of how business works is pooh-poohed by our current crop of MBA geniuses and financial engineers. However, for those who still have that odd and out of fashion sense that all profits flow from "the customer", I invite you to consider how "the customer" feels about big banks.
I suspect that there would be few that disagree that most "customers" and "prospective customers" (that would be all American citizens) pretty much hate the larger banks as well as the Wall Street culture. My questions to be pondered while looking down the road at the future business model for banking are as follows:
A. Do all profits flow from "the customer" or am I missing some sort of profit stream? Prop trading is an exception as long as the bank is not using "the customer's" fdic funds, which those phucks probably are doing but we have corrupted and owned regulators.
B. If most of "the customer" pool hates the large banks, will they continue to do business with them, supplying the profit stream? Do they have alternatives?
C. What would happen to the large banks if "the customer" disappeared.
I do think in all of our varied discussions of the American banking and in my extensive readings of just about everything out there on our current banking malaise, I rarely if ever see mention of "the customer".
I'll accept that some might find me naive in thinking that "the customer" is the all important factor and my response to that is to simply say that without "the customer" any business is completely phucked.
+1. Every penny of capital and taxes eventually finds its source in a customer/consumer.
indeed you are correct!
people lose sight of the customer way too frequently. that is the biggest mistake all businesses make.
The issue I find a bit funny is if this was successful then they would either lean on the gov directly or the FDIC or the Fed. I can tell you that the FDIC would not like to take down on of the giants, there is no money. So what we could expect is another bailout, they are to big to fail even if the customers decide to take it on themselves to downsize them. Sure that Uncle Ben is more then willing to float a little easy money to these guys if there is need. Not to sound pessimistic but if the power structure says yes to these institutions then we can't say no, they will be bailed out with our money if we take our money out. Damned if you do damned if you don't
Disclosure: Been in a credit union my whole adult life, even while working at a large bank.
Do you realize the irony of what you're implying? And the blatant "tail wagging the dog" that it would further expose. What you're postulating is...
The government, in order to "help the people", bail out the banks that "the people" are trying to topple.
Wow.
Moved my bucks long ago. USAA FSB (fabulous!) and a local bank in SE TN.
Moreover, I would advocate local business loyalty in as much commerce as possible. Get to know your local business owners. They need you, and you will need them.
When the poop hits the fan, you'll get by with a little help from your friends.
Check out this link: http://unchainedinamerica.com/
*100!
USAA is awesome. It's the closest the US has to a military bank, with many military families banking there. That's some serious extra insurance. Even though the FDIC is going broke, USAA will probably be among the last institutions shafted.
Fabulous! (sorry, had a Bwarney Fwank moment). Corsey. It's a axiom repeated ad infinitum in Charles Hugh Smith's amazing tome, Survival+. It's basically this...
Moved a five figure account from Wells Fargo to local bank in the past year, before this campaign started.
Me too, but early this year.
I don't support HuffPo initiatives but even a stopped watch is right twice a day, yada yada.
Wells suggested I talk to their "investment" specialist about putting the money into stocks (!) through them (!) but quickly folded and coughed up a check.
Hey, this is great. I moved my accounts last year from Bank of America to my local credit union. I feel as though I'm being treated like a human now.
Until they start merging into a mega monster and eventually wind up (in 2015) as Credit Union of America (CUofA), with 60,000 branches, proprietary HTF algos, a 60 floor tower on Broad Street, and convert to a Credit Union Holding Company.
Then they'll start treating you like shit again.
Contributor to the Huffington Post?...respect just went out the window...wow
Right out of the playbook of the elites is the concept of infiltration and co-opting.
The Tea Party movement came out of the true libertarian/RP faction of the political landscape. And it had one hell of a powerful, resonating message.
So what do TPTB do? They infiltrate it with extreme right wingers, neocons, and other political trash.
As a result, you have Sarah Mooselini Palin as a keynote Tea Party speaker talking about war with Iran.
Why can't we do the same? Why not have MORE sane people as contributors to rags like Huffpo? Turnabout is fair play if you ask me.
BTW. When I think of HuffPo, I think of a bunch of brain-dead idelogues that sit around Huffing glue before they write some of that shit.
A few friends cashed in their IRAs and got physical gold a while back.
They are now profiting and making far more money than their IRA was.
I thought 'move your money' was acutally an idea Catherine Austin-Fitts originated.
If Obama says love the banks, huffpo loves the banks, if he says hate'em, huffpo hates'em. My point, huffpo is Obama's bitch. Don't believe a word of it. We're all 0hedgers
If Obama says love the banks, huffpo loves the banks, if he says hate'em, huffpo hates'em.
With respect, you are absolutely wrong in regards that statement. If you read HuffPo several times per day and have for the past year and one half, you would not make that statement.
I hear ya, but the problem is Ariana goes on CNN, MSNBC, and CNBS trying to sound a 'different' and 'opposing' points but when it gets down to the nitty gritty stuff, like the bank bailouts, she's all for it. She thinks Obama is the best thing since the slice of bread and that the deregulation happened under Bush (not the repeal of Glass Stegall under you know who).
Ask yourself this, how is it that people like Tyler/Max Keiser/Mish/Karl Denninger etc don't go on talk shows to tell'em to shove it??
It's (huffpo) controlled by the left absoloutely and they think more of 'left' is very good.
take off yr blinders, get some new glasses-- and then watch this: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f5a57185bd/funny-or-die-s-presidential-reunion?rel=player
very funny I have to admit, thanks for sending it
. once again, you miss the point, these guys ALL work for the same people: CFR, triLat, and Bilderberg group.
+1
I don't want to see pics of Lindsey Lohan; I want cutting analysis. HuffPo keeps the unwashed spitting at each other in the manufactured Left/Right quandary instead revealing the Up/Down reality.
Here's an example of their fine reporting:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/12/nancy-elliott-anti-gay-ne_n_460...
You would never be allowed to post that on the huffpo boards, the monitors/moderators are like Nazis protecting the propaganda machine.
Show me what you do, I could care less about what any of them (including dahling Arianna) say.
Who Needs A Campaign?
We closed every account we had at Bank of America after they bought Countrywide. That Angelo Mozilo simply looked way too sleazy for us to be involved with in any way. Good God, what a scumbag.
I worked for Angelo and his nation-wide gang of thug bankers, and let me tell you, it was worse than you will ever know.
Trillions gone, Angelo is still walking around in those ugly suits.
i don't need huffpo to tell me that, i don't even like huffpo. the enemy of my enemy is all they are.
That seems fair enough all the way around. They are definitely not in love with Barry no more.
Jaja doesn't love Barry anymore? Are you sure? You don't know these people my friend.
Moved a six-figure account overseas some time ago then converted everything to gold. It's a great feeling sticking it to the Fed and I recommend it highly. And it's even gotten better since the global financial crisis began. Banks. What a ridiculous fucking notion.
Nice. Force the failure of the "too big too fails".
Next up if CONgress and the WH don't start siding with the public: Nationwide strikes. Non-violence works.
I just opened an account at Goldman Sachs, does this count ?
Earlier today, I closed my last account at Citibank, citing their decision to charge for my formerly free checking account and my desire to bank locally. After a parade of managers tried to change my mind with fee waivers and offers to discuss my leaving, I decided to ask for the balance in cash. Although the amount was under a thousand dollars, they were not at all happy to see actual cash leaving the bank.
Just refinanced $300K mortgage away from Wells Fargo to a credit union--I was particular that they service it themselves and not punt it back to the TBMF (Too Big Must Fail) Crewe.
Still working on other accounts. Never heard of this huffpo stuff. It all helps directionally even if some is misguided IMHO.
'BRING THEM DOWN! BRING THEM DOWN!'
--King Theoden
If you really want to hurt them take your money out in cash!
That is Fractional Reserve in reverse!
A great project would be a Bank Franchising Open-Source Package. It would contain all the software + protocols of setting up a bank, the bank would be managed by it's users, without a expensive director(s) and they would vote how to lend/invest the money, creating a cluster of public owned banks that would be more efficient than traditional banking.
This is an outstanding idea and one I have been mulling over for some time now. Unfortunately, I'm not a professional in the finance industry (engineer by trade) but I have been following all the shenanigans for about 2 years now.
Is there any reason something like this could not work? Does banking have to be rocket science? Could we model this in a similar fashion to the microfinance industry which appears to be working quite well?
the dux bed atm never malfunctions,
it also dispenses physical gold and silver if necessary;
try that with your credit union.
will they be open during the next bank holiday?
dux bed atm is open 24/7/365.
why the banksters love the left:
http://www.rense.com/general79/amake.htm
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