Stacy Mitchell, senior research for the New Rule Project’s Community Banking Initiative, suggests that people look at where they are borrowing money just as much as where they are depositing it:
Credit cards are one place to start. About three-quarters of community banks and just over half of credit unions offer credit cards. Unlike big banks, these smaller institutions generally do not view their credit cards as major profit centers (you have to do a lot of volume in credit cards to make real money), but rather as a service for customers with whom they often already have a relationship.
That means that the fees and interest rates are often lower. Although data for small banks is hard to come by, a recent Pew study compared a group of credit unions with the largest banks and found that the credit unions had significantly lower interest rates, penalty fees that were half the cost, and “fewer dangers associated with unfair or deceptive practices.”
