Guest Post - Banking Day

Today my dad blogs about doing some business banking!

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Thanks to geralt for the picture!

'BANKING' DAY.

And the sun rose upon a new day, and it was ordered that I must present myself to the bank and prove who I am.

The fact that I have done business with them for over 20 years is neither here nor there. They know where I live and I owe them money, but apparently I now have to prove who I am, show them my birth certificate, produce utility bills etc all supposedly authenticated by someone important such as an Optician, local government official, member of the armed forces, etc. Bank employees did not count as 'important'! The notion that an Optician is regarded as 'important and trustworthy' but an employee of the bank where I have done my weekly banking for over twenty years isn't, seems both bizarre and amusing.

However, it seems that potentially I could be an international criminal involved in white slave trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling, the list is endless.

Can I prove that I am innocent? they seem to ask.

Are these people real? I reply.

The man who interviewed us at the bank - my wife also had to prove who, why, where etc accepted my wife's and my our proof of identity on the nod and seemed to be almost embarrassed that we had had to do this. He also said that regardless of the official letter I had received from 'Clueless Bank Head Quarters', he was regarded as 'important and trustworthy', and he could indeed verify my identity.

However, he had other questions to ask.

He needed full details of all foreign countries we buy goods from!

We don't!

Well, we placed a one-off order from a German toy manufacturer last Christmas, (a present for our grandson) which won't be happening again, and last summer - or was it the summer before, I forget - we bought some small statuettes from a firm in Paris, but 99.9% of our stock is bought in the UK.

"And what about Eire?" he asked, in a tone of voice suggesting that he had caught us red handed smuggling children to a sausage factory in darkest Pontefract.

We currently have two customers in Eire who buy from us - we don't buy anything from Eire.

"Oh", he said "Oh fine". Somewhat distractedly he waved his pen like a magic wand over a huge questionnaire, searching for a killer question that would prove our identity as international criminals.

"How much cash do you bank per year?" he asked.

Like the bank doesn't know? Maybe it was a trick question .. or possibly the bank's left hand is entirely clueless as to what the bank's right hand is doing?

If anyone knows how much cash we bank surely the bank will know? No, Really?

We bank very little actual cash (folding paper variety), as is the case with a lot of businesses virtually all our money is either cheques or cards through the card machine, at most £1000 per annum is banked and probably much less than that.

The bank chap looked utterly deflated, this sum was apparently trivial beyond expression, he was looking for people who bank hundreds of thousands or millions.

He looked rather discouraged and against my best efforts I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Poor chap, he then spoke to us as if sharing a confidence with a friend, that he had been in Financial Services at the bank for 40 years!

No wonder he looked sort of 'withered'.

I made some half-hearted joke about it sounding like being trapped in hell and with no trace of a smile he said "yes, something like that"

He continued that being a 'banker' was no longer highly regarded these days and that he was sometimes reluctant to tell people what he did for a living.

I suggested that he tell them he was a pig farmer instead, at which he smiled vaguely.

Finally he said that he was pleased to have met such nice people, shook hands and thanked us for our time.

Yours faithfully - I forget my name, but I am certified a non-international criminal .... for the time being at least.

If you enjoyed this, why not pop over to www.facebook.com/RavenMagical and check out my parents business - they offer all kinds of weird and wonderful magical and new age goodies!

Aren't banks great

Periodically for my grandmother I take a load of change into the bank, to be changed into bank notes.  My preferred way of doing this is by pouring all of the coins into one of those automatic change sorter things, which are great fun.  The only problem is that most of the local branches of my bank don't have these - the one in the centre of Hull does, but that brings into play travelling into Hull centre, finding parking, paying for parking, basically taking a couple of hours out of my day to pay some change into the bank - plus once I went and the machine was broken, and my bank is one of these where the larger outlets don't actually have a counter facility any more, it's all coffee machines and comfy chairs and little booths where you chat about taking a loan out to start your business.  So, me with my fifty odd pounds worth of change had to haul it back to the car and think again.

(Yes, you can use the ones in supermarkets but they usually charge a chunk of what you've put in so it's not really ideal)

So the other option is sorting the change into change bags, and paying it in over the counter.  I actually quite enjoy counting change, so I don't mind this too much.  Last time I paid some change in the staff behind the counter weighed the change bags, and found a couple of differences between my calculations and what the weighing scales said.

I quite happily accepted their alteration, despite it leading to me receiving twelve pence less than I had expected to gain from the process.  Pleasingly they also told me "As long as you break the change into different denominations, we can just weigh it for you", so I wouldn't even have to worry about counting it all up, just pop each type of coin into a different bag and that would be that.

Did this work?

Of course not.

When I went to a different branch to ask if this was okay I was told in no uncertain terms that I would have to count the change up and fill in a paying in slip.

This I can quite understand and accept, it's just a little annoying when one branch tells me one thing and a second branch tells me another.

I would also note that this was the same bank that sent my parents a very worrying letter about how they had to comply with new standards on electronic protection, which basically amounted to pay us ten quid a month and we'll give you some software that will protect credit card information held on your companies computers.

My parents business is (except for their Facebook page) virtually entirely offline.  They do not accept payments over the internet.  Incredible in this day I know, but there it is, and they've made a living for many years operating in this manner, and continue to do so.  The computer that holds customers names and addresses is not connected to the Internet, ever.  Credit card details are kept on paper and destroyed post-transaction.  They have a shredder and a coal fire that can be used for this.

Despite this, the bank still wanted a payment off them to buy this software - otherwise they would class them as being "non-compliant" and fine them instead.

So, armed with the letter, my parents went into their local branch of the bank - which is laid out all lovely, welcoming person at the front, coffee machine, all the expected stuff - and asked what they should do.

No one at the branch seemed to know anything about the electronic protection standard, the letter the bank had sent out to its business customers (bearing in mind the branch did, unlike some other branches, have counter facilities, but these were solely for "business customers" and therefore had some interest in being up to speed on what issues these valued customers may have), or be able to offer any advice to my parents on how to proceed.

They now hire their credit card machine from a different company.

For a significantly lower rate!