Mostly bank staff are of the surly type stripped of any pretence of pleasantness. Recently however one let his mask slip! I went in to see a bank manager about a mortgage in late November 2007. I got the perhaps slightly understandable look of scorn about wanting to borrow money in the middle of the biggest credit crunch in living memory. He clearly thought I was a penny short. He reluctantly told me of the process I would need to crawl through although he as good as told me “no way” without actually saying so. To my great surprise the next time I saw him he was considerably warmer and more helpful. Half way through our conversation he suddenly asked me about my grandmother! He had heard from the estate agent that I was buying the flat for my elderly relative. Property prices and rents have rocketed in recent years. Granny is 90 odd and doesn’t have 2 pennies to rub together. She has been moved on on several times in recent years as landlords can get massively higher rents from new tenants. The law says something about having to keep rent rises in line with inflation but its too easily ignored. I am pretty convinced that without that phone call from the estate agent there’s no way I’d have got the mortgage. Well done Alpha Bank and I’m sure my gran thanks you too!

Dominic

One of the first things I noticed is their love of paperwork. They seem to have no concept of conservation.

The banking system here is so very backward in so many respects. But then they surprise you with things like the Digipass, which you mentioned, which is an excellent idea from a security point of view. As is the fact that you have to have a separate account for online transactions and transfer money to and from it as needed, thus making it impossible for anyone to gain access to your main account. Excellent idea. I’m told it’s going to be introduced to the UK fairly soon.

But for all it’s faults, the UK banking system is pretty efficient. So the Cyprus banking system certainly presents us with quite a challenge! I love it!

http://iwontbelong.blogspot.com/2007/08/internet-banking-in-cyprus.html

For those of you who don’t know, I should explain that every utility bill has a ‘please pay by’ date. If you miss this date, you lose the privilege of being able to pay it at a bank or via internet banking.

What’s that all about? I can find no logical explanation for why they should refuse to accept payment by these methods after a certain date on the calendar has passed. If it’s intended to make sure that people pay on time, it doesn’t work. I’ve missed the deadline a couple of times and I just wait for the next bill and pay it then. So they end up waiting longer for it.

I’ve even had utility bills arrive after the ‘pay-by’ date!

There was also a time when I tried to pay a utility bill at the bank (before the days of internet banking). The girl stamped it, etc, and took my cheque, then said they’d have to charge me 50c. So I handed her 50c. Then she noticed that it was a day late. Oops, she said, we can’t do it here after the last date. You have to go to the utility office. OK, I said, and was about to take the bill back when she realised she’d stamped it. So she called her supervisor, and they talked in Greek for a while, with lots of gesturing… then she said, all right then, we can do it. Just this time. But next time make sure you bring it in before the last date on the bill.

And then (get this…) she gave me back my 50c! Since they were paying the bill some unofficial way, I didn’t need to pay them to do it after all…. (shakes head in bewilderment, even after all this time…)