Chase, which bought Washington Mutual, will change the names on all WaMu banks, at least in California.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/13/BUSF159G7K.DTL
I've been a WaMu customer for over 10 yrs, no complaints. I hope this doesn't mean I have to change banks, but I fully expect Chase to start charging me for thins that WaMu didn't.
Looks like they won't be closing many branches, as Chase didn't exist in CA before this, so there's no duplication. But yeah, I wouldn't count on free checking forever.