Would you credit it

In our pursuance of a full and active life as paid up members of the Italian community, we took another step in achieving this goal today when we opened our bank account. Not that it was any simpler than anything else we’ve tried to do.

Flavia (who else) drove us to Montegranaro, some ten minutes away, for our 2.30 appointment with Simona, which should have left me enough time to get back home for my lesson with Alessandro. I know I’ve mentioned Italian banks before, but to add to your understanding of them, you should know that they are only open to the general public in the morning. So what do they do in the afternoon? Well, other than an arranged appointment such as ours (and we were the only people to be seen in the hour and forty-five minutes we were there) I think they take advantage of the air conditioning and undisturbed Candy Crush Soda, it being a pleasingly ambient temperature inside the lightly shaded offices.

I have to say, though, that Simona was absolutely lovely, with a wry smile and friendly, efficient manner (which may have been partly due to the fact that she is on holiday next week, spending a few days in Rimini with her husband and young son). She kept smiling when the system would not recognize us as we didn’t have permanent residency (again!) – she did call for help from one of her colleagues, who stood behind her beaming benignly for several minutes before ambling back to his office, where something was engrossing him deeply on his computer.

To our relief, she did eventually find a way to enter our details and there followed over an hour of printing off documents and us signing them, as well as entering specimen signatures electronically via a tablet on the desk. This was a great wheeze, as we had to write our signatures eight times; I presume so the system had parameters within which to gauge the authenticity of any future signing. It was soon put to the test when we had to authorize something or other; Stephen passed first time whereas it didn’t accept my first three efforts. Fortunately, I figured out how to forge my own signature and after that I had no problems.

Eventually, sometime just past 4pm, we left the bank with lots of sheets of paper, a debit card, €20 from the cash machine (to register the card) and Luca, who had relieved Flavia as she’d had to get back to the factory for a meeting… and only twenty minutes late for my lesson. Just as well Alessandro is the epitome of the laid back Italian.