"We're happy to be a part in a small way of what's going on," said Gorham, 38, a manager at an insurance company. "We've been following the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Like a lot of people in our generation, we feel a frustration about the lack of a level playing field."
Until banks report their fourth-quarter results early next year, it will be tough to say whether Bank Transfer Day or a similar campaign dubbed "Move Your Money Day" has had a noticeable effect on a U.S. banking industry dominated by a handful of multibillion-dollar banks.
But after Bank of America Corp. announced its plan to collect $60 a year from each of its millions of debit-card users, to compensate for caps on transaction fees imposed by last year's Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, it quickly became clear that the bank had ignited a firestorm - not just over bank fees, but over continuing anger at major financial institutions for their role in the housing bubble, the 2008 financial crisis, and the ongoing economic slump.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D., Ill.), whose amendment required the Federal Reserve to cap the fees at an amount "reasonable and proportional" to banks' costs, added fuel in a speech defending the caps, which are expected to cost large banks $6 billion to $8 billion a year and which he said would "reduce costs to retailers and consumers across America." He told bank customers:
"Vote with your feet. Get the heck out of that bank and find yourself a bank or a credit union that won't gouge you for $5 a month and still will give you a debit card that you can use every single day."
