We’ve started organizing BarCampBankSeattle, which will probably be the first US BarCampBank meeting. A sign-up form and more information will be posted to the wiki and discussed in the BarCampBank group.
A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants.
BarCampBank is a community organized around the following mission:
The aim of BarCampBank is to foster innovations and the creation of new business models in the world of banking and finance.
Here’s an article about “unconferences” like BarCamp in BusinessWeek: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_20/b4034080.htm
May 14th, 2007
Marc Hedlund and the Wesabe team have begun to flex the muscles of community finance. By tagging abusive bank fees, Wesabians are exposing and beginning to change a reprehensible practice.
I’m hoping to see a “worst offenders” report sometime soon!
(from Marc’s original post)
When we first launched Wesabe last November, we were not surprised to see that our #1 top merchant at that point was Amazon, and #2 was Netflix. That matched well with the stereotype of “early adopters.” What was surprising, though, was the merchant #20 was Overdraft Fee. If you think overdraft fees just hit people who are “bad with money,” they don’t — they hit a huge percentage of the population, and as Wesabe has grown, we’ve seen that more and more. Currently, our users have been charged roughly $200,000.00 in overdraft charges in just the past few months — an average of one overdraft charge for each and every person tracking their money on Wesabe.
See the original thread, and Marc’s post about it.
Update: you should also read this analysis by of NetBanker!
April 30th, 2007
