If you know of a bank that’s offering really good interest rates, whether for savings accounts or for personal loans, then you may be tempted to switch banks to take advantage of what’s available. And there’s no good reason why you cannot do this and still leave your previous, original checking account in place if you so wish, since this will not adversely affect your credit score, unless you have a negative balance in your account.  However, if you wish to abandon your original checking account, then it would make good financial sense to close down the account, because you’ll never know when the bank could trigger a transaction or fee. And this could potentially adversely affect your credit score if you are unaware of it. But, if you want to close down an abandoned bank account, you must take out all the remaining money in there, because banks will only close the account when there is a zero balance.