Save Me…… from nostalgic trips to the bank

I remember the 1970s with a special fondness, partly because I was born at the very start of them.

Putting aside the familial earthquakes that ultimately shaped my childhood and adulthood and presented me with a big bill for years of personal counseling, the 1970s were a decade of simplicity, long summers, flares and our family’s wooden-framed Rediffusion TV.

It was a time when you had to use a phone box if you wanted to make a call while you were out. It was a time when it didn’t take long to decide what to watch on TV because there were only three channels. It was a time when, if you wanted to change the channel, you actually had to get up from your chair and walk over to the TV and do it because there were no remote controls. It was a time when I got 10p a week pocket money and would spend it on ha,penny chews and packs of stickers for my World Cup ’78 sticker album (I kept getting loads of “Dino Zoff”s – google him – and I could never swap them with my mates because they all got him too).

It was a time when banks closed early and there were hardly any cash machines and those that did exist were slow. It was a time when banks did everything on paper - in triplicate – and it took days for your salary to arrive in your account. It was a time when, if you presented a foreign cheque at the counter, the member of staff would look at you in a funny way and say “We don’t do Mickey Mouse money here Sir.” It was a time when, if you wanted to change your account details or order a new card, you had to go to your own branch to do it.

Ah, the 1970s. It’s lucky I feel nostalgic for them, because I can time warp back to them any time I feel like it right now in 2012, by just calling into pretty much any Spanish High Street bank.

While British banks have moved forward with the times, Spanish banks seem to be very much stuck in a rut. A flared-trousered, three-TV-channeled, World-Cup-78-sticker-albumed rut.

Now, of course, Spanish readers will be looking at this and wondering what the hell I’m going on about. Spanish banks are fine, you say. Well, that’s because you don’t know any different. But try visiting a British bank and you’ll probably faint at the sheer weight of technology and lack of paper that greets you when you step through their doors. And you’ll also probably be amazed to know that you can draw your money out of pretty much any cash machine from any bank and NOT be charged for it.

Yes, it’s true. And what’s more, I’m prepared to go on the record now about Spanish banks and I don’t care if my bank here in Spain blackballs me for what I’m about to say.

Spanish banks are crap. They are backward, sluggish, inefficient, technology-starved and so irritating that you want to pick up a chair and throw it at someone – which is probably why they’re screwed down in every branch you go into.

I have the misfortune to be with Banesto. But, let’s not be unfair here. All Spanish banks are the same, useless behemoths.

You may think I’m just ranting, so let me put some meat on the bones of my rantathon.

There’s a lot of paper in Spanish banks. A lot. Even though they have computers, they still do everything with paper. And then they copy it on to three other bits of paper, just in case the first bit of paper goes missing. Everywhere you look in a Spanish bank, there are piles of paper. You want to know where the Amazon rain forest has gone? It’s in Spain. In the banks.

They charge you for having an account, they charge you for giving you a debit card, they charge you for arranging to pay your rent out of your account every month, they charge you for having your salary paid into your account. Then they charge you for paying utility bills out of your account. Then they charge you for the statements they produce that tell you what you’ve just been charged for doing all that other stuff. They also charge you if you draw money out at a cash machine from another bank. And I’m not talking piddling amounts either. I’m talking about five Euros a pop for most things.

I fairly regularly transfer money from my Spanish bank account to my British bank account – but I can’t set up a monthly payment, oh no. I have to do it manually every month, even though I do the same bloody thing every month. And then, when I do, a new member of staff turns up who doesn’t know how to do it and ends up spending 30 minutes staring at the computer screen and ringing loads of numbers trying to find somebody who knows what to do, while also tutting and telling me at the same time that I’m holding up other customers and can’t I come back another time when they’re not there and another member of staff can spend another 30 minutes doing the same bloody thing.

Things that take a matter of minutes in a British bank take ten times longer in a Spanish bank. Even getting your salary. In the UK, the transfer from your employer’s bank to your bank is instantaneous. In Spain, it takes a couple of days to appear. I guess that’s because the bank’s carrier pigeons can only carry so much in one go.

Look, don’t get me wrong. British banks are far from perfect. And they’ve also had a load of taxpayers’ money to bail them out, yet still find the cash to pay out big, fat bonuses to big, fat bankers. (Note to big, fat bankers - come the revolution, you’re probably quite high up the average taxpayers’ “To Do” list, if you know what I mean).

But, really, come on Spanish banks. While there were many things in the 1970s that I loved, going on a nostalgia trip every time I walk through your bloody doors is not something I want to keep doing. Get a computer that works faster, buy a longer cable, install broadband, stop using so much paper. Do something, for God’s sake.

Everybody else is waiting for you to catch up.