Many a study has shown how the traditional banking model impedes consumers’ abilities to switch from bank to bank. I’ve certainly written much about the hurdles the average consumer faces when trying to move to a new bank. Indeed, there have been startups which have tried to address this challenge to consumers.

BancVue, for example, has something called CheckingFinder.com. At least one of the two more notable startups in the switch game is in flux, however. Facilitas operates FindABetterBank.com and BankSwitcher.com, but BankSwitcher.com is currently being relaunched with no published timetable for its return.

Although I could never prove it, and it is more the conspiracy theorist in me who thinks this, but in my view, traditional banks are somewhat collusive in preventing consumers to switch. The old-line banks have never agreed on a data standard consumers can use to import and export their data. Additionally, the majority of banks have embraced third-party online banking platforms that purposely exclude data import/export functionality. In other words, if banks wanted to make switching easier, they could have.

Then again, why would they? Established banks, and not the Bank Simples of the world, benefit from making it difficult to switch from bank to bank. Which is why I think it is particularly noteworthy that SunTrust Banks Inc., one of the 10 largest banks in the US, has a switch-your-bank initiative – even if it is somewhat downplayed by the bank.

SunTrust’s Switch Assistant, launched in November 2008, is mainly comprised of a “switch kit” that guides consumers through the maze of tasks needed to move finances from one bank to the next, but is framed as a service SunTrust provides. The kit includes some customized letters and a checklist. There’s a 1-877 number to call, too. This isn’t the most comprehensive service, but then again, at least it is something, and it appears to try to go beyond the usual switch kits the major banks offer.

Consumers can get to the service by going to www.suntrust.com/switch, but the actual URL is a secure HTTP page (in other words, HTTPS) and that makes it all but invisible to search engines. I pinged the page for backlinks – sites that link to the Switch Assistant page – and I got one. SunTrust.com, by comparison, has 47,612. I asked SunTrust’s PR folks how much usage the Switch Assistant gets and their response was “consistent, steady” – whatever that means.

My sense is that the Switch Assistant is not a big winner for SunTrust. Rather, I highlight the service because, to my knowledge, it is the only such effort by a Top 10 bank to help consumers switch from bank to bank. (Obviously, consumers can use SunTrust’s “switch kit” to move their finances to banks other than SunTrust.) The Switch Assistant doesn’t break the chains that bind consumers, but it does acknowledge that they need help. And, boy, do they.