Last week I made the monumental step of finally opening a new bank account. I’ve had enough of the Royal Bank of Scotland and its three-ring circus of shaved monkeys. I decided to go with HSBC, after my exhaustive comparative research demonstrated that they were clearly the only bank with a branch next to my office. I showed up on my lunch hour with all the requisite personal information you need to open a bank account in this country: previous bank statements, utility bills, passport, marriage certificate, tenancy agreement, personal references, tax returns, DNA and fingerprint proof of identity, police record check, personal measurements, recent shopping lists, a brief summary of my likes and dislikes, and a fresh urine sample. They were still a little hesitant to believe that I was who I said I was (one can’t be too careful these days!), but a very nice Russian lady whose name was actually Olga showed me into an office.
Olga was rather a nervous sort: you got the impression that she was afraid that if she filled out a form wrong she’d be carted off to the Gulag, or possibly even transferred to Birmingham. When I explained to her that I wanted to start a savings account with the highest possible interest rate so that I could start saving up for a down payment on a house, she appeared mildly confused. “You want…savings account?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Not…current account?”
“Just savings account.”
Olga became agitated and started rattling off incomprehensible streams of information about interest rates and laughing a lot. Then she stopped herself. “Am not sure is possible,” she said. “To have savings account you need also current account. Because…you need to have account to transfer from…cannot put money directly in savings account.” She looked as though the burden of having to deliver this information might cause her to break down in tears.
“So I’ll need to open two accounts.”
She laughed nervously. “I think is so.”
“Um, OK.”
She got very chatty at this point, especially when I showed her the spouse visa in my passport. “Oh, you are married? Is so great being married! Me too I marry an English bloke” (except with her accent it sounded like “English block”). She was also very excited when she noticed that I live in Kilburn. “Oh, we look for place near West Hampstead! Primrose Hill also very nice, but very expensive.” By the time I got all the paperwork signed I was starting to worry she was going to invite herself round for supper. “Goodbye!” she sang as I left her office. “Have nice day! Good luck!”
The next morning, when I was waiting to cross the street to my office, a voice behind me chirped, “Oh, hello!” It was Olga, evidently delighted to see me. I made small talk about the weather and trotted off before she could start showing me her family photos or humping my leg or whatever. Christ, the shit I have to go through. All I wanted was a savings account, and now I get to be stalked by a Russian bank clerk.