Banking follies

Even though I'm now an Italian citizen, I'm not a resident of Italy. That's partly for tax reasons and mostly because we aren't here more than six months a year. But being a non-resident complicates some aspects of our lives.

For example, this week we finally sat down with a member of the Unicredit bank staff who spoke a little English and was willing to take the 45 minutes required to figure out and then explain to us how our checking account worked. We already knew there were a lot of fees. It turns out that, since we're required to have a non-resident account, and since such accounts are restricted in various ways (to discourage money-laundering and other "dangerous" activities, I gather), we were paying close to $300 annually for the privilege of letting Unicredit hold our money.

The fellow who explained this to us seemed surprised himself that the bank was charging us so much and sincerely regretted that there wasn't any way to reduce the fees. Not only was he as nice as pie, but his name is Fiore, "flower," which apparently is not an unusual name for Italian males. How cute is that?

Almost $300 was enough to overcome my usual inertia, and I went online to see what other banks charged. As usual, this took a ridiculously long time and very heavy use of Google Translate as I tried to make sense of various bank web sites. Considering how many expats-in-Italy sites there are, I was disheartened when I couldn't find any that gave specifics on this issue. Nor were the bank sites very forthcoming. I ended up visiting a couple of them in person, since that seemed to be the only way to get the information I wanted.

One of them was Carisbo, a bank that Pam had heard was somewhat less rapacious. It turned out a woman who works there speaks excellent English and was happy to give me all the information I asked for. Even better, the fees for a non-resident account are something like a third of what we've been paying. So the next day Danny and I came in to sign up for a new account.

Like Unicredit, this bank makes you come in through a kind of airlock that makes sure people can only enter and exit one at a time. It's a bit like an upright MRI. I presume this is to deter robbers, but in the case of Carisbo this seems a bit ridiculous, since a large sign in front announces that there is no cash in the bank itself. If you want actual money, you go to the ATM at the front entrance. But if you want to talk to bank staff, you have to go through the security door.

I don't think they irradiate you when you go through. That seems like an oversight.

It appears that what this security system is protecting is vast amounts of paper. Setting up our new account required not only photocopies of our passports and tax ID documents, but also something like 25 signatures each on reams of documents covered wtih fine print. When the paperwork was finally all done, Debora, our lovely and helpful banker, proudly posed with our set of copies.

It's more than an inch thick, and I have no idea what any of it says. But whatever we've agreed to, Debora assures us that it's going to cost us a lot less.