The California Credit Union League said it is still seeingrecord numbers of new members joining the state's 427 creditunions.

The surge began after the Sept. 29 announcement that Bank ofAmerica would begin charging a $5 monthly debit fee and hascontinued past Bank Transfer Day on Nov. 5, the league said.

An estimated 160,408 new members joined between Oct. 1 andmid-November, the league said it found in a recent survey. Thefirst nine months of the year saw an average of 15,500 new membersper week, compared with 26,735 since then, an increase of 72%, theleague said.

New deposits, meanwhile, have averaged $52.8 million a week – atotal of just more than $317 million – since Oct. 1, compared tothe average of $30.7 million per week from January throughSeptember, the league said.

“We are encouraged to see that the peak levels of increases inmembership and deposits we saw in October, a result of heightenedawareness about credit unions, have continued throughout November,”said Diana Dykstra, CCUL president/CEO.

More than 9 million members now belong to California creditunions, which old nearly $130 billion in assets, the leaguesaid.

Across the country, Maryland's largest credit union said it alsois continuing to see “unprecedented member growth” from peoplemoving from other institutions.

Also, current members of the $2.2 billion SECU, “are expandingtheir relationships with our credit union, opening new personal andbusiness accounts and increasingly making SECU their primaryfinancial institution,” said its president/CEO, Rod Staatz.

“With the holidays, we typically see account openings flatten inNovember and December,” Staatz said, “but with negative sentiment toward the big bankscontinuing and more people switching financial institutions as aresult of events such as the recent Bank Transfer Day, we areexperiencing a reversal of that trend this year.”

During the week after Bank Transfer Day, Linthicum-based SECUsaw an increase of 62% in new checking accounts compared with thesame weeks in 2009 and 2010 and 61% for new members compared withthe 2010 week.

The following week, which included the Veteran's Day holiday,saw a 67% jump in checking account openings and 72% increase inmembers compared with the same weeks in 2009 and 2010, Staatzsaid.

He added that 34% of new checking accounts opened in Novembercame from existing SECU members, “confirming that many members whomay not have thought of SECU as their primary financial institutionin the past are now beginning to do so.”