Deborah Larson, one of the finalists for this year's CO-OP THINK Prize, wantscredit unions to offer prospective members a single, easy-to-useapp which will help them switch from a bank to a credit union.

Larson, a branch manager at the $56 million, 3,600-memberDakota Plains Credit Union, in Enderlin, N.D said the idea cameto she and her co-workers during the furor over Bank Transfer Dayin late 2011.

BankTransfer Day – Nov. 5, 2011 – was a day when activists tried tomotivate consumers angered over bank bailouts and the GreatRecession to move their accounts from national banks to creditunions or other local banks.

“It occurred to us that one of the biggest obstacles to peoplemoving their accounts were all the direct debits that many have setup on their account,” Larson said. “It would really help if therewere an easy application that would help member move those from oneaccount to another.”

Larson said her credit union knew about her idea and supportedher work on it, but that the idea belonged to her. She said shebelieved most people's direct debits could be moved “pretty easily”from an application with a database of different services andcorporations in it and pointed out that similar databases exist inbill pay programs to help members more easily set up paymentsthere.

If she doesn't win the $10,000 prize, Larson said she hopes shewill be able to find a vendor or CUSO which might be interested indeveloping and licensing the application broadly. “I hope allcredit unions would have access to this one day,” she said.

The winners will be announced at the THINK conference April29-May 2 in Chicago.