This Saturday is Bank Transfer Day, an opportunity for customers with checking and savings accounts in too-big-too-fail banks to shift their money to local banks and non-profit credit unions.

Large banks have been provoking ire for years by making exorbitant profits from hidden fees, corrupt lending practices, and by charging higher prices for basic services. These banks pay multi-million dollar salary and stock award packages to top executives while contributing little to the local economies of their customers and routinely evicting mortgage holders who have paid far more than the value of their home. Bank of America is one of the most obvious corporate presences on the University of Massachusetts campus. The corporation’s CEO made almost $2 million in total compensation in 2010 and whose foreclosure practices are under investigation by state and federal governments.

Bank Transfer Day seeks to combine personal finances with collective action as a response to systemic abuses of the United States financial services sector. This kind of direct action has a measurable impact both on banking policy and on strengthening the alternatives to too-big-to-fail institutions. Big banks have been increasingly forced to reckon with organized resistance, as evidenced by Bank of America’s recent withdrawal of a proposed $5 monthly fee for debit accounts in reaction to complaints from customers, the public and the president.

Bet this withdrawal does not signal an overall change in banking practices.

The $5 charge was direct and transparent whereas overdraft fees and other punitive charges often remain unknown or affect only the most economically vulnerable customers, making resistance more difficult to organize. Bank of America, Chase and Citibank have all substantially increased their fees for checking accounts this year and this trend shows no sign of slowing.

In part, large banks are able to increase fees and change policies to the detriment of their customers because of their increasing introduction of electronic services. With online bill paying, direct deposit and the convenience of storing credit card information for online purchases, it takes a lot of work to change to a new method of savings. Banks use these policies to deepen their ties into the everyday life of their customers, producing a loyalty based on reliance rather than quality. The New York Times has quoted Emmet Higdon, the former manager of Citibank’s online bill payment system, as saying: “it was known that it would be a powerful retention tool.  That’s why online bill paying went free in the first place. Inertia is powerful in the banking industry.”

Large banks also offer the convenience of ubiquitous ATMs, evidence of a fantastic growth at a great human cost. The rapid proliferation of Bank of America’s ATMs, including on the UMass campus, was not paid for by the ingenuity of its officers but by the bank fees and mortgage payments of increasingly impoverished customers. These ATMs are not an aid to campus life but glowing corporate advertisement in an otherwise public space. As an alternative to these machines, UMassFive College Federal Credit Union is a non-profit, cooperative financial institutional with a branch on UMass campus.

Some argue that Bank Transfer Day will not affect too-big-too-fail banks, as recent regulations have made it less profitable for large banks to hold onto personal accounts while maintaining federal standards of transparency and security. This loss of small accounts could be offset by an increasing number of corporate clients, drawn by the apparent stability following new federal oversight.

This argument overlooks the profits reaped by charges made to retailers whenever they swipe a debit card. On the other hand, it brings to light why switching banks is not enough to prevent another financial crises or mitigate the ongoing effects of this one. New legislation, popular movements and emerging alternatives constantly shift how banks make profits and how individuals save their money. Bank Transfer Day is just a first step in having more popular awareness and control over how banking is done.

The demand that bank customers “vote with their feet,” now most famously championed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), should not overstate the practical accountability of large banks to their customers. Despite new regulations, large banks continue to find loopholes in policy and customers willing to imperil their long term finances to have a home.  That’s why Bank Transfer Day is about more than changing individual bank policies. It is important for students to withdraw their money from corporate banks, where their savings may be used to offer predatory loans and contribute to the current cycle of mass evictions. Bank Transfer Day, at its best, is a shared recognition that our personal financial decisions always have collective effects and that private financial institutions are not immune to our collective action.

Mike O’Connor is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].