Atlanta On ACORN International’s Remittance Justice Campaign (www.remittancejustice.org) we have had difficulty getting any response from the big banks except in the most cursory terms.  Wells Fargo did finally reply and told us they were doing great within a small footprint of countries.  Bank of America and JP Morgan/Chase were stone silent.  Not surprisingly given the predatory nature of their pricing.

A story broke yesterday on the wire and NPR which might more clearly indicate that the big boys can actually hear the footprints coming up behind them even as they stick to stonefaced spinning.   These three banks got together on something called ClearXchange in order to try and retain some of their customers exhausted with the constant fee rip-offs and increasingly inventing other alternatives including hand-to-hand transfers through prepaid debit cards within families or utilization of the PayPal if folks are sophisticated.

Frankly, this is a Band-Aid the banks are applying when a tourniquet is called for.  They may keep a couple of their more inept and lazy customers, but folks are leaving this train station and demanding other tools that reflect modern technology, rather than ancient and pervasive greed.

The NPR report seemed to hint that Google was talking about moving into the space of money transfer utilizing phones and mobile devices.  Talking about “doing good” or something like that which used to be their motto, I could fall in love again!  I couldn’t track down the whole story on a Google search (sounds contradictory doesn’t it?) but I did find that it has been possible to move money between various Google accounts fairly seamlessly using something called Google Checkout for the last two or three years.  Obviously not widely recognized or publicized, but they could also be knocking on the right door.

In Citizen Wealth I argued that companies, even big bad boys like Wal-Mart and H&R Block could create business models with huge returns by delivering service that low-to-moderate income families need and demand.  Money transfer of remittances is precisely the service that will see the game change fundamentally in a short time.  The banks and credit unions are trying to hold on to old models that are predatory and not realizing that you can’t leave $22 billion in profits out there and not have other, easier and cheaper services eventually suck them dry.

It’s past time for remittance justice.