You can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave. That’s how I’m feeling about one of my banks. I recently decided to close a particular bank account. Turns out that the bank, which allows me to open new accounts on-line, won’t allow me to close accounts except in person. Having to go into a branch is a minor inconvenience, and I’m sure that’s the point: the added friction makes it that much harder to break up with the bank and gives the bank another opportunity to try to sell me additional services. What’s more, it gives the bank another shot at levying some fees on the account for one reason or another.

If pressed, I’m guessing that the bank would claim some security issue means that they need to verify my identity in-person. That’s nonsense:  they had no problem letting me clear out the balance via an on-line transaction. This is just about making the deposit account relationship stickier and therefore less competitive.

So if there’s still anyone home and listening at CFPB, this should be low-hanging non-partisan fruit: use your UDAAP authority to put out a Hotel California rule that will make it easier for consumers to voluntarily close their deposit accounts. Think of this as the deposit account version of click-to-cancel. If the consumer is able to transfer all funds out of the account on-line—that is if the bank offers on-line funds transfers and there’s no hold on the account at the time—the consumer should also be able to close the account entirely on-line.