[ars]

If you're going to switch, why wait? You can have more than one account at a time.

Open the new one, and start using it. When you have access to your old account, write yourself a check and deposit it in the new account.

It's that easy. You don't have to officially "close" the account and withdraw the cash.

Once your balance is zero in the old account, give them a call and confirm that you want it closed, but at least in the US banks will auto close zero balance accounts after a little while.

[lmm]

Over here they tend to deliberately keep them open (and will encourage you to leave 5 pounds in there to do so), presumably to inflate their statistics.