New and existing members were filing into Velocity Credit Union's branches this morning, but its Bank Transfer Day business faced perhaps even stiffer competitions than banks.

That's because the University of Texas Longhorns had an 11 a.m. kickoff for its game with Texas Tech in Royal-Memorial Stadium.

“Four of our five branches were open this morning and we're getting a very steady stream of members and new members, definitely busier than usual for a Saturday,” said Carol Cain, the $566 million credit union's senior vice president of marketing.

“We should have been signing up tailgaters,” Cain said with a laugh. She did note that the branch traffic included more new member signups than usual. “Usually there's a lot of teller activity, but today every new account person had someone sitting in the office,” she said.

Austin has been a town that has seen particularly high Bank Transfer Day and Occupy movement activity, Cain added, noting recent changes in banking fees along with the publicity around debit card charges fueling the move to credit unions in the Texas capital.

She said the 70,000-member Velocity already had seen new checking accounts increase in October by 91% more than in October 2010, and online applications were up 174%. August also was a record month, Cain said.

“It's been crazy,” she said.

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Bank Transfer Day: Velocity CU Signs New Members, Competes With Longhorns

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