Banking

Why we should all move our money to indigenous banks.  I was interested to read recently about the grassroots movement that is spreading across the USA to abandon the major banks and for all customers to move their accounts to community banks.  In our islands that would translate to “indigenous” banks. 

Here is the video that started what I expect will, in the coming months, be a groundswell of change in banking practices around the world:

It is not just the conviction that many of us have that our small indigenous banks are safer than the major international banks.  There are small people with immediate, personal reasons for moving.  Here, as an example, is Stephanie Frost, one irate Bank of America customer, explaining what she is doing:

To cite Camden R Fine, our community or indigenous banks take time to get to know their customers. They make loans to the small businesses in the community that the larger banks won’t touch.  Their continued success depends on building and maintaining good relationships with their customers.  Indigenous bankers are accountable.  They have to be.  Often they are dealing with their neighbours, the parents of their children’s friends, the people they see every day during their personal and professional lives.  They rely on common-sense practices, honesty, integrity, accountability and transparency. 

The same cannot be said of the management of the Banks of America, Citigroups, Wells Fargos, et al.