Research firm says 610,000 switched banks because of Bank Transfer Day

Javelin Strategy and Research says 5.6 million people changed their banking institutions in the last 90 days of 2011, with 11 percent -- or 610,000 people -- citing Bank Transfer Day as their reason.

Bank Transfer Day, which officially took place Nov. 5, was a social-media-driven backlash against big banks, and encouraged people to switch their deposits to a community bank or credit union.

The Credit Union National Association initially reported gaining 650,000 new members in October, but later drastically reduced the estimate to 214,000.

Javelin's online survey reached about 6,000 in December. The firm says the pool was selected to be representative in gender, age, income, and ethnicity.

The 610,000 who left because of Bank Transfer Day was a threefold increase over the number who left their banks for similar reasons in the previous 90 days, Javelin says.

More people -- 26 percent of those who switched banks -- did so because of fees, Javelin reported.

While Javelin reports the impact as measurable, it did not add up to a significant outflow for the big banks.

Bank of America, for example, reported in a fourth-quarter earnings conference call that account closings spiked 20 percent in the period after its failed debit-card fee announcement and Bank Transfer Day. But the Charlotte bank's average checking and savings account balances were down less than half a percent from the quarter before.