Banking Crisis

No, this post is not about the credit crunch. On that front, I am not surprised. After all, how many emails have you received offering low cost mortgages and low interest credit cards? Just like viagra and penis enlargement, some people must be taking up these offers.

For the past month, I have had no access to my savings or current accounts through the Internet portal at Standard Bank (SA Bank account). At first, it was because of scheduled downtime, but it did not appear, long after the downtime was over. And, despite emails to the Internet banking team, nothing seemed to be resolved. Anyway, after 4 weeks, I got an email from the email support unit saying that I had to go to a local branch to get it resolved ... and the email acknowledged that was going to be difficult seeing that I was on a different continent.

So, I loaded up my Skype account, got myself to one of my regular net cafès (luckily the weather was good, so I could sit outside ... I did not know, how long I had to rant at the operator) and got on the phone. Predictably, the customer service, at first could not help ... since it was a Saturday noon, despite advertising support number that operates until 4pm. Eventually, after about 20 minutes (bow down to Skype ... it still costs less than 5 minutes of a cell phone call in either South Africa or Germany), I found out that my savings and current accounts (not my credit or notice deposit accounts) were closed due to FICA reasons; so I was directed to the FICA helpdesk.

The FICA helpdesk could not work out what went wrong either. They mentioned that someone at the Musgrave branch in SA loaded a FICA related notice on the 17th of July, but I was already in Berlin, a full 6 days after I went to the Musgrave branch to buy foreign exchange and put a change of address notice (complete with the relevant FICA documentation). It is also about three weeks before I noticed problems my account. It was also distressing that I was not notified at all about this, considering the amount of money I have in the accounts. However, the FICA rep could not help me on a Saturday, but did promise me to get it sorted out first thing Monday morning.

Which she did - Monday morning, it seems it is all sorted out, and I can access my accounts again. The main downside to all this - I have to fork out about R2 000 (approx 200 €) more in flights and accommodation costs for my conference travels this month (ACM DRM in Washington DC and Virtual Goods in Koblenz). I still have no idea what went wrong, and why my accounts were suspended. It is at times like this, that I really miss 20Twenty.

And to really put the situation in crisis mode - I had no access to my German bank account either, and with sorting out the visa, I had all of 5€ in total on Friday night. My Deutsche Bank account provides me with two cards: a savings card and a current card. But these accounts are different, and not linked. Furthermore, the current card expires ... as it happened on Friday. So, since I had no money in my savings account (which has since been resolved) and my access to my current account disabled, and no open bank offices over the weekend, I was in a really financial distress. Luckily, I had some US dollars on me, and I got on a bus to Nuremberg (they don't check to see if you have a ticket on the bus), changed my dollars to Euros, and managed to ride out the weekend (quite well too ... see my other posts this week).

So in summary ... it is possible to live life without bank accounts, as long as you have cash in hand. US dollars seem like the best bet, but I saw that the forex office also buys and sells Krugerrands. I think, above everything else, that could be the best cash equivalent of them all.