Banking!

Once upon a time, I had this German friend who wanted to work at a bank. She had to take a math test and she was a little too slow for starting as an apprentice. She ended up working at a chemical lab instead but eventually got allergic to the substances she was dealing with. Instead, she went on and became a qualified assistant tax consultant. After a few years she did her bachelor degree in business and later on a bachelor professional of accounting. Today she is a CPA. There is no one I trust my numbers with more than her. I guess you can wrap it up saying that you need to be pretty good in order to work at a bank in Germany.

Now to my experience this week. I know I know, this is a neverending subject, but IT IS. It is so frustrating to be involved in any kind of banking business here.  Save money? Impossible, the interest is so LOW there is no point in  opening a cash deposit account or a saving account. They get taxed, too. Instead, the only way to make money here, seemingly, is to invest and take risks. Lower taxes too.

As you know I hate cheques, especially since becoming the treasurer for the Swedish school. I am on an ongoing mission to find new ways of payment. Anything is better than sending money by post. We have paypal (costs money!), we will accepting credit cards (costs money!!) and now we accept bank transfers. While depositing some of those damn cheques the other day, I just wanted to make sure I had the necessary information for people to start wiring us money instead. The bank teller had no idea how to do a bank transfer! Here they call it a direct deposit but not even that rang a bell. Oh no, instead I had to go and sit down with one of the managers (who was busy putting on lip stick!!). She could not give me a straight answer, but she THOUGHT routing number and accounting number should do the job. In some cases you can send money via email (what a joke, do I want to give myself more work but going in accepting these payments?)))) Seriously, someone is pulling someone´s leg here and is making way too much money through the cheques.

Anyhow, tonight I am going to transfer one dollar from my account to the Swedish school´s to see if it is working. We have different banks so that apparently makes things harder. Knock on wood.

Not sure I told you about the experience I made before Christmas. I had to draw some money out, I needed 3 x 80 dollars petty cash for the Christmas party. Itold her, in total that is 240. The reply "oh, I need to go and check, and gets her humongous calculator out of the cupboard!´". Get my point? I don´t think it takes much working at a bank here. Disregarded which one.

I will keep you posted, perhaps I will make the remarkable discovery tonight that IT WORKS. Good bye cheques!