Be very careful what you wish for (again)

The inefficiency of banks in Italy is legendary. A list of the people with a story to tell will fill books but the stories themselves will fill libraries.

It came to pass that I needed to pop some cash into my brother-in-law’s bank account. I couldn’t simply hand over the cash because he is in Africa, although, in hindsight, it may have been easier if I had simply got on a plane and taken it to him.

I had his bank account details and I live only eleven kilometres from his local branch so I simply got in my car and drove there. I thought: “This can’t be too difficult. Waltz into the bank with a fistful of euros, whack it on the counter and ask the lovely cassa assistente to deposit it into the nominated account”. I had been living in Italy for two years and so I was aware that:

* Nothing goes precisely to plan
* There are a lot of unforeseen obstacles to overcome
* Plan on spending a very good part of the day waiting for your turn

So when I parked the car in the street opposite the bank I charged up the parking ticket machine as though I would need the spot for the rest of the day. The fortunate thing in the Italian paese is that you don’t need a bank loan to finance the transaction.

So I approached the bank with a fair measure of optimism. An added bonus – there were only two others ahead of me in the queue. What could be sweeter? This was obviously one of those rare moments in life when you feel as though you are “in the zone”, you can’t do a thing wrong and the ball seems to land magically in your hands, you baulk the tackles and you have a clear run at the goal.

Well, not quite.

The cassa assistente was very obliging and did everything she could to make my transaction as painless as she could, commendable in the circumstances as she said that she has very little “Inglese” and she was dealing with someone whose Italiano is poco poco at best. She was clear enough, though, about three things:

* The transaction was no-where near as simple as I had imagined.
* Putting cash into someone ELSE’S bank account was highly suspicious and there are clear banking regulations that make it a very rare and arduous process. It is every bit as difficult to put money INTO someone else’s account as it is to take it OUT! In fact it is a far, far less difficult task for a foreigner to pass through Italian immigration than it is to deposit cash into someone else’s account!
* I would have to return domani to complete the transaction, suitably armed with proper documentation to prove my identity and to vouch for my residency as a foreign citizen entitled to stay in Italy and, presumably, entitled to make a bank deposit in cash.

So, that was that. The world has not stopped. The sun will rise again tomorrow. People will go about their daily tasks somewhat unaffected and, domani, I will make the eleven kilometre drive back to the bank with the cash, my permesso di soggiorno and my Carte D’Identita.

Well everything looked promising. It had come at the cost of a day that I would never retrieve but hell – what else would I have done with it?

So I fronted the bank the following day, a four hour parking ticket on my dashboard “just in case”, with a fist full of cash, bank account details and my documents. Once again (lucky two days in a row!!!) only two in the queue! No sign of the cassa assistente. Maybe she was across the road at the bar having a cappuccino or gone to the bagno or whatever. So we wait. And we wait. After fifteen minutes one of the “personal banking” assistants walked through the banking chamber, better known as the “waiting area”, and thought it wise to inform those waiting that there was a computer problem at the bank today, the cassa assistente had gone home to prepare her husband’s meal and do a bit of housework and that anyone wishing to make any sort of cash transaction today would have to delay it until domani or otherwise take the fifteen kilometre trek to the nearest branch in Albano.

Having committed myself to the mission I thought: “Might as well go for broke. Go the extra fifteen kilometres in pouring rain armed with cash, bank details and identity papers”. Found the bank OK. First business location on the main street, albeit set back with trees in front so that you had to know it was there in order to find it. Tricky for first time customers. That’s one of the things about finding a business in the Italian paese – you need to know it is there in order to find it. Mostly they hide themselves pretty well. Because no-one in Italy shops by going along the street looking for a business sign. No-one shops online and no-one looks up an address. What you do is ASK someone where you buy this or buy that and they simply tell you where to go – to a place that is run by their relative or friend of a relative or, in some cases, the friend of a friend’s friend. It is important, in the Italian countryside, to know WHO you are buying from rather than WHERE you buy it.

Anyhow my GPS led me to the bank and I enquired about the possibility of performing a cash transaction. The greeting clerk at the front desk was lost without trace. The desk was there and a cardigan draped over the chair but no sign of life. So I went on the wander. I thought, in a bank, someone would intercept me if I got too close to any sensitive location – like the vault, the cash draws or the coffee machine.

A lady did make my acquaintance but said she had absolutely no Inglese and that I should approach the signora who is usually at the greeting desk but was, for the time being, not there. So I loitered around the entry long enough for someone to ask me if I needed anything. “Yes, bundle up all the loose cash around the place and whack it in a large bag with no identifying marks and hand it to me while I bound out on my trusty stead hitched to the front door” is what I had in mind but immediately came to the realisation that I would simply be confronted with a “Come?” so I settled for a “Parli Inglese?” whereupon the lady found a man deep in discussion but who was only too happy to be interrupted to charm this foreigner. He led me back to the empty desk of the cassa assistente fossicked for some deposit forms and finding none bounded out to find the absent assistant who, as it transpires, was the very lady who had steered me to the front desk in the first place! Her grasp of a foreign language had not improved in the intervening twenty minutes so I resigned myself to coping with my limited command of Italiano.

We worked through every conceivable administrative issue, including the identity check and the rezidenza before the lady completed the deposit slip in triplicate and then said fairly clearly that the transaction would be executed promptly upon the payment of the “commissione”! I thought: “That’s a new one – you have to pay a commission to the bank when trying to put money INTO one of its client’s accounts! So nine euro and an international transfer later I consummated the arrangement with the cassa assistente and I parted with the funds and obtained a receipt which consisted of a five page bound document signed in four places, as an offset, I figured, having sacrificed forever the functioning parts of two days.

Maybe Italy is the only place where there are inefficiencies, although I suspect not - but it is the only place I know where I suffer them gladly to be living with such wonderfully receptive and accepting people who ALWAYS accomplish the vital missions, no matter what their nature, despite the waiting time and the roundabout methods of achievement. It is the only place I know where domani is mandated. It has to be, otherwise literally nothing would get done! There is something reassuring about knowing that, in Italy, there always will be a tomorrow and life will continue and it will be enjoyed. It’s another day in Paradise!

To those who say (and many do) “I wish Italian businesses (especially banks) and I wish the bureaucracy (mostly Poste Italiano) were more efficient” I simply say “Be very careful about what you wish for …”