Credit unions locally and nationwide cashed in during Saturday's so-called "Bank Transfer Day," a month-old movement urging consumers to transfer their money out of banks and into not-for-profit credit unions.

"We had our biggest new membership day of the year," said Roy Worley, a spokesman for Sacramento-based Schools Financial Credit Union. "Forty-six percent of the new memberships were from individuals stating they came in Saturday because it was Bank Transfer Day."

"We also had a good number of existing members visit us and open new checking accounts because it was Bank Transfer Day," Worley added.

Other local credit unions, which like Schools Financial touted extended hours, also reported brisk business.

Saturday was the culmination of the monthlong effort that has seen disgruntled bank customers close existing accounts and open up new accounts at credit unions.

Worley noted that Schools Financial – which has 11 branches in the Sacramento area – "had a tremendous October with 1,064 new member sign-ups. That's an 11 percent increase over the previous month."

That dovetailed with claims of the Washington, D.C.-based Credit Union National Association, which said hundreds of thousands of Americans have switched from banks to credit unions over the past month.

On Saturday, credit unions from coast to coast reported steady streams of new members opening accounts.

In Los Angeles, several hundred marched through the city's financial district to mark the day. Organizers said some marchers canceled accounts at banks that included Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo.

Los Angeles was ground zero for the movement.

Early last month, Kristen Christian, a 27-year-old Los Angeles art dealer and Bank of America customer, became upset with myriad fees and what she called poor customer service among large banking institutions.

She aired her complaints on Facebook and quickly drew tens of thousands of supporters. The movement is not linked to Occupy Wall Street, although the activists have endorsed it.

Amid the recent public outcry over bank fees, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. scuttled planned trial runs of debit card fees. On Tuesday, Bank of America said it was abandoning its just-announced plan to charge customers a monthly $5 debit card fee.

Christian called that "too little, too late" and urged consumers to soldier on.

The Alexandria, Va.-based National Credit Union Administration said more than 7,000 federally insured U.S. credit unions have about 91 million members and combined assets of about $1 trillion.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Mark Glover, (916) 321-1184.

• Read more articles by Mark Glover