Adieu Citibank: Why I Ended My Abusive Relationship with a Big Bank.

This is why I moved my money.

It's become more and more clear to me that there is no good reason to keep my money in a big, global, corporate bank (in my case, Citibank).

However, there are countless reasons that it is very bad to keep my money there:

1. Growing fees, many hidden in fine print and impossibly hard to get reversed by customer service bureaucracies. Banking is a service for people, and not the other way around. If a bank's M.O. is profit making, me, the single depositor, will get screwed at every opportunity.

2. My money should not be supporting corrupt institutions that profited on a cosmic scale defrauding the American public through CDOs, credit default swaps, and predatory lending leading up to the Crisis, and then afterwards profited and consolidated even more power and money through the bailout, laid off their workers, and lined their executives' pockets with the dollars of taxpayers they were foreclosing on.

3. My money should not be funding global corporations and businesses that profit from the destruction of the environment and the livelihood of its workers. Every $10 I deposit in a bank can turned into $99 of loans that I have no control or decision giving out (and for what? monthly checking fees, inflated overdrafts, and bad customer service?!)

4. My money should not be propping up too-big-too-fail institutions that are systemically dangerous to the future economy of my nation and my planet, that corrupt and pervert our democracy, and bit by bit, erode the social and political fabric of my nation.

5. Where I put my money is the most potent and influential decision I can make as a regular person to effect change in the underlying structure of my country.

So this is why I'm moving my money to a credit union.

1. A credit union is a non-profit institution that only exists to serve its members. My money can only be leant out to other CU members and community businesses.

2. A credit union has lower and less fees than my global corporate bank. As a member, all profits from loans and services come back to the members in the form of lower loan rates on mortgages, auto loans, personal, business, and credit cards, as well as higher savings rates and dividends.

3. As a member, I vote on the leadership of the credit union, and no member gets more influence than any other (regardless of the size of their account).

4. Credit unions by law cannot engage in the risky lending and speculative practices that drove the world economy into a tailspin in 2008.

5. Credit unions represent the future economy I wish to see: more democratic, more focused on regional and community development, and more empowering to the individual.

6. Credit unions show us what the intersection of good, smart capitalism and true participatory democracy really looks like.

This is why I just moved my money.
Good bye Citibank, Hello San Francisco Fire Credit Union.

-Jacob #######