Occupy SF to Open Its Own Credit Union

Last month this thread garnered a bit of attention:

AboveTopSecret: OccupyOakland Protests Wells Fargo, then Opens an Account

Somehow, though, this one seems to have escaped everyone's notice (or so I believe, as I did a search and didn't turn it up):

Occupy SF Protesters to Open People's Reserve Credit Union

A few weeks ago, we got a real kick out of the fact that Occupy Oakland deposited a $20,000 donation it received into Wells Fargo -- one of the many big banks the movement has been actively protesting since September. Say what you want about Occupy SF camp (it's dirty and filled with homeless people) -- at least protesters there are practicing what they preach.

Members of Occupy SF announced their ambitious plans to turn protesters into bankers by creating the People's Reserve Credit Union. According to Occupy SF's Facebook page:

"The goal of this project is to encourage San Francisco residents, businesses, as well as nonprofit and city agencies to keep their money out of the big banks and to redistribute that money locally. Initial services will include micro-loans for the working poor and homeless, and subsidized student loans at low interest rates."

The credit union is being created with the help of San Francisco's Glide Community Church and Supervisors John Avalos and Eric Mar. The group filed its paperwork and has already crafted a thoughtful mission statement: The credit union will serve as a replicable model for other financial institutions to reinvest wealth in their local communities. They will support microenterprise, provide educational loans, and foster community improvement projects.

You know, it's easy to laugh at the Occupy movement; to criticize it for a lot of things both goofy and tragic; to belittle their understanding of the real underlying problems. But all it takes is a for a single idea like this to spread through the Occupy movements to have done a serious public good. That's really as much as we could ask of them....

How ironic would it be, if they themselves turned out to become a big bank

Jokes aside, I think they show the right initiative by keeping the money in the community

reply to post by VikingDude

Yeah, the story says that they'll be offering micro-loans (

I think that is a brilliant plan.
I'm in. Occupy credit unions sound great.
That and a $10k all electric car with 100 mile range
and we'll be calling the shots.

reply to post by sealing

Well... Baby steps....

Lending Club

There've been things like this going on for years already. This is nothing new.

I have been using this site for about 3 years.

every little bit of change helps ~
slowly but surely replacing the current system with
a system that actual serves us in an honest way ~
what a concept ~

Brilliant, I hope they are able to successfully do this.

reply to post by Grimpachi

Well, just to be clear, I'm not really claiming that this is anything new. I'm trying to say that it would please me no end to have all the Occupy groups do something positive and locally oriented; something that would help themselves and others in their community. I mean, does anyone really expect Occupy to bring the world's criminal banks to their knees--or even the local branch of a big bank? Better they should accomplish *something* than to be beaten insensate, arrested and end up with criminal records, just to have it all come to nothing....

Amazing. They opened up a credit union with other people's money. Maybe they will call it the Soros Initiative Credit Union.