Do not fall for their shallow tactics. They can drop the $5 fee, but you can drop their asses and take your money elsewhere.

Following the lead of J.P. Morgan, U.S. Bancorp, Citigroup Inc., PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and KeyCorp, Bank of America is dropping its plans to introduce a $5 monthly fee for debit card purchases.

“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” said David Darnell, co-chief operating officer, in a statement today. “As a result, we are not currently charging the fee and will not be moving forward with any additional plans to do so.”

The statement comes just days before the November 5th National Bank Transfer Day, publicized by both Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous.

While it is nice to see these banks responding to outrage over their greedy fee tactics, this is no reason not to follow through on National Bank Transfer Day. Quite the contrary, it should be great encouragement to go even further in such efforts.

As I’ve noted many times before, there are several good reasons quite apart from fees to move one’s money out of a national bank such as Bank of America or JPMorgan Chase and into credit unions or local banks, which reinvest in local community development instead of in the off-shore account and investment portfolio of these bank executives.

We are told we utilize national banks because of convenient locations—no, convenience is a marketing ploy. Walk, bike or drive the extra few miles to your nearest credit union or small, local bank. Putting money into a credit union or local bank will not precipitate the type of economic crashes we’ve seen recently with the nationals. In a credit union, members have a right to vote for administrators as part of a union. And, finally, you will not be financing unethical businesses as Bank of America has done (the bank financed a deal to sell Blackwater, for instance).

We can be happy with ourselves that BofA responded to customer outrage, but we should still take our money out of their bank.

I dropped BofA over a year ago and it was one of the best banking decisions I’ve ever made. The thieves are no longer filching my pockets with their various unethical scheming.

Read “4 Reasons to Close Your Bank of America Account.”