And I think that’s a great model – in fact, I think it’s the only model that could successfully differentiate small institutions from big banks. But I feel a frustrating amount of inertia in the banking sector. Most banks are content to offer lip service to customer-orientated banking, but never really question their fee income or business model.

I think you saw that through the way the NCUA mobilized against interchange fees. That would have been a great moment to say, “Hey, these fees are regressive, and hide the true cost of electronic transactions from our members.” Instead, lobbying and a fair degree of misinformation.

Taking on the market share of the big banks is going to require a pretty big commitment to changing the way banks and credit unions approach consumer finances. Otherwise, I worry it’s just going to be a few brave institutions battling away at the edges.

Still, I can’t help but think that the reality has failed to match the rhetoric for most small institutions. We talk a big game about taking on the big banks, but every data point available – from customer growth to deposits to loan assets – show a clear trend of large banks growing larger.

True, most of this has been aquisition based, and maybe there’s a sweet spot where we get to grab huge market share among bank-assumed customers, but that’s a big if.

And what’s worse, I don’t see a lot of small institutions willing to embrace an alternate pricing model that would really differentiate themselves from the big banks. There were credit unions, for example, that didn’t charge the amount of overdraft fees that the biggest banks did, but there weren’t any who said, “Providing overdraft services is generally bad for our customers, and shouldn’t be an important part of our income model.” If they did, I’d like to hear about it.