WALL STREET – The month-long Occupy Wall Street demonstration continued to bear fruit for local credit unions, with representatives from four nearby community development credit unions on hand at the Zuccoti Park protests Saturday helping participants and passersby join a credit union.
The four CDCUs – Lower East Side People’s FCU, Brooklyn Cooperative FCU, Neighborhood Trust FCU and Union Settlement FCU – all were keeping their branches open for extra hours Saturday to accommodate bank customers.
The transfer to credit unions was being pushed by the New York Financial Network Action Consortium, which was sponsoring Saturday’s Wall Street protest.
The protestors followed up Saturday’s event with an all-day “Credit Union Forum” Sunday to discuss why they believe credit unions are an ethical alternative to large corporate banks.
Protestors in other “Occupy Wall Street” events throughout the country – Denver, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Orlando, San Francisco and Washington – also were calling on consumers to move their funds to a credit union. In Durham, N.C., representatives from local credit unions rallied with organizers with movemoneydurham.org, part of Occupy Durham, during the Bank Transfer Day activities aimed at moving accounts to credit unions.
