It’s pretty simple to open a bank account, so easy that, if you go to any bank branch, you can open an account within five minutes, but you can’t say the same about closing an account.
The process it takes to close a bank account may be daunting and even discourage you from taking a step to shut down the bank account you no longer patronize.
A survey according to Punch has shown that one in five consumers considered switching banks but didn’t because of the hassle and effort involved in the process of closing an account.
If you ever have a reason to close your bank account, you don’t have to feel stressed about it. Here are steps to take.
1. Get a new bank first
Before you take a step to close down your bank account, it’s important you open a new one with another bank first. The reason for this is to make your financial transaction easy after making up your mind to close the old account.
If you close your bank account before you open a new one, you’ll definitely find it difficult to transfer money, write cheques and pay bills.
2. Change your bank details to make automatic transaction easy
Once you open a new account, it’s important you change and re-route your bank details because of any automatic transactions such as rent payments, bill payments and automatic fund transfers. The essence of this is to make it easy for employers and whoever may have to transfer money into your new account seamless.
3. Transfer the money from your old account to the new one
Once you have confirmed that automatic transactions have been properly re-routed, you can begin to move your money from the old account to the new one.
4. Close the account for good
As soon as you the account is empty, you’ve withdrawn all your money and the account can inform the bank to close it.