Down the hatch

From the start - not my photo. I don't have the skills. Another one borrowed stolen from Angie. I didn't get out at all today.

Fighting with a British bank that certainly from it's name sounds very dubious. Family tradition required me to have my first bank account at Barclays in Attleborough Norfolk back in the early 70's. Still remember writing cheques for £1.00 cash. Back then that would be enough to tank the car, a pint of beer and a plate of chips at the pub next to college and a packet of No6. Oh lad, those were the days.

First girlfriend got me to change to Midland Bank in Norwich shortly afterwards - suspect it was so that I could repay her all that I had borrowed! Did move account to Gt. Portland Street in London when I started work there and finally in the 90's moved it to Northampton when I was doing some business wheeling & dealing for a small German company. And there it has been since.

So in all I have been a customer, without a break since about 1974 about as long as the UK has been in the EU and without any stress. However now they want me to identify myself. I can understand the reasons - money laundering etc etc and am quite happy to go along with it.

The letter that announced I had to do this, proclaimed how easy it was to do online. The alternative of getting copies of documents certified and translations done by certified translators, is both costly and frankly in this day and age unnecessary.

Notebook switched on, webcam hole uncovered (is it just me that is taken in by rumours hackers can switch on your camera?), go through the various routines to get in to online banking, hit the link to the ID check routine. Double check hair looking reasonable,  no stupid items on the shelves behind me., various documents scanned and ready to unload and  Passport ready to hold alongside my grinning webcam face.

And off we go. Failed. Try again and again. Frustrated, phone UK Helpdesk telephone number and as I should have known, just got the standard off the shelf answers that assumed I was sitting in Bourton-on-the-Water. Still amazes me that the UK considers the highest most secure ID document is an electricity bill! Yes I have an EU photocard driving licence but no it doesn't have an address. Yes I have an EU bank a/c but it's an online account and they don't send out paper statements by post and ...thank you but I don't consider getting a copy of my bank statement translated and then certified by another bank where I am not a customer to be worthwhile - you constantly send me things via post and can be relatively confident it's correct, yes including credit cards, notification  about changes to terms and conditions, higher charges, indeed even the letter telling me to do this entire ID thing.

I eventually sent off some messages and closed the whole process down. All for an account that has a 3 digit balance, about 10 transactions a year of which 8 are from UK FTSE100 companies paying 2 digit sums in to my account and the two £30 payment transactions are to Amazon for a pair of gloves or weeks supply of baked beans.

My bank - seemingly now relocated from Burton-upon-Trent to Hong Kong and Shanghai - is totally unknown to 99.99% of Germans but they do have a presence here, no doubt almost exclusively for business customers. I have never seen a branch - suspect there might be one in Frankfurt. They do have a German website though.

I wish them well if hard Brexit happens but I fear that Nigel F. and his ilk will not be amused when they get turned down credit at Francois' Paris Pernod Bar, or Jan's Amsterdam Cannabis Coffee Shop or Fritz's Frankfurt Biergarten, just because they can't produce a final demand letter from France Gaz S.A./Netherlands Elektriciteit B.V. /German Telekom AG which happens to show the address of their rented flat.

Not as if these people were paid or fed peanuts like the local residents here. Guess one just has to swallow hard and get on with life.