Dear banking

September 4, 2006 · Filed Under Italy · Comment

Beppe Grillo recently moaned about Italy’s expensive banking costs and I too would confirm that having a bank account is by no means cheap here, indeed Italy is one of the most expensive places in Europe to have a current account. I noticed this years ago when I found out that you got charged on a transaction basis, so the more you used your account the more you paid. To get round this I wasted no time in arranging one of the then new fixed monthly cost accounts. You pay, but save in the long term.

Why is banking so expensive? Well, for a start forget economies of scale. Here in the living museum you will find as many banks as football teams. Every town seems to have its own little bank. Then there are the staff. In Italy you tend to find middle aged bank clerks and they are paid rather well. The bank employees contract is generous and this will contribute to the high cost to the customer. Back in the UK it was difficult to find a bank clerk over the age of 25 and many were a lot younger and, of course, cheaper. I never paid charges to open or close an account in the UK, even when I opened my first account many moons ago and spoke directly to the bank manager. This would be nigh on impossible in the UK now, but not in Italy. I have to say that I’m quite happy with my bank and its staff, although my other half, who banks elsewhere, tends to find the bank employees uniformed and unhelpful. There is always on heck of a queue in her bank too, which does not make things any better.

Things are changing, slightly and slowly and bigger banking groups are starting to emerge, although lower costs for customers do not seem to be on the horizon. Foreign banks seem to be few and far between, with the possible exception of a famous German bank, so cut price competition from abroad is limited to an on-line service. In fact on-line banking is just about essential here unless you have plenty of time to waste hanging around in a time-consuming queue.

Only recently a law was made to force banks to stop charging customers for closing their accounts. Overdrafts are hard to come by and seem to necessitate several visits and signing sessions. Back in the UK, years ago, I could get an overdraft authorised over the phone in around 5 minutes. Here you still need days.

I’m sure a little bit of intelligent management would sort things out, but the amount of money being made means that this is not likely to happen, at least not until someone cottons on to the fact that low costs will hook more customers and with more clients you have more people wanting and using your other services. It’s all really psychology: people will not spend any money on services which are expensive, but they will spend some on reasonably priced services. If no-one spends any cash then no profit can be made, but this concept seems lost on the banks here. However, this is the mobile phone model here. First hook your client, then encourage them to use existing services more and get them to pay for new services. Oddly enough the mobile phone companies which have instigated this model are not Italian. Maybe the same strategy will penetrate the banking sector although heaven only knows when.

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Tags: Italian, Italy

Milan wakes up and keeps us awake

September 4, 2006 · Filed Under Italy · Comment

Things all seem to be back to normal and about 99% of Milan’s shops and businesses will open up again either today or tomorrow. Alas the oldies disco is also back up and running, nosily, and we are about to send them a letter about the volume of the annoying music which means sleeping before 2.00am is difficult for us and others in our appartment block.

The main problem is the bass which thumps through walls and throbs. Then there is the ’smokers’ garden which they have opened in their back yard which means we now have the dubious pleasure of loud, slightly drunk, patrons wittering on about pensions and stuff until the small hours. Not nice, but I’ve already identified a section of Italian law designed to prevent this type of acoustic pollution and there is also some case law, which, even though Italian law does not officially have a precedent system, will not do any resulting court action any harm, because, unofficially, there is a precedent system. This is logical I think, as past interpretations can surely be used to guide the fairness of future decisions. However, this is Italy and anything can happen.

I suspect I shall be making some future posts on the subject and just what progress, if any, we make. One thing I do know is that Italian legal processes tend to move at a pace which would make you think a snail travels at light speed. Not good. Patience will be required, although we have just about run out of it.

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Tags: Italian, Italy

Of computers etc

September 4, 2006 · Filed Under Technology and Gadgets · Comment

I’m sort of hunting for a new laptop at the moment. I’ve narrowed my choice down to a Dell Inspiron 6400 with an Intel 2.0ghz core duo CPU - T2700 and an X1400 Ati graphics card, 15.4″ screen and 1 gig of ram.

The CPU is just about top of the line, whereas the graphics system is not, but then I’m not a hard core gamer so I’m not in the market for a serious gaming laptop even though I had looked at the Dell 9400 which can come with a really hot graphics card in the form of the GeForce Go 7800. The 9400 also comes with a 17″ screen which is nice, but makes the whole PC huge and heavy, not that I move my PC around a lot, especially since I got my Dell X30 pocket PC (great piece of kit and the quality is very good too - I still have not seen anything quite as good (624Mhz cpu) for around the price I paid). At times I do like to take my PC with me and so I do not want anything that weighs much more than 3kgs. Another trip to Rome is in the offing so this will be an occasion when a laptop comes into its own.

I’m sticking with Windows XP home as the operating system because I don’t think I really need XP Pro whereas good multimedia capabilities are useful for me.

People do seem to slag Dell off from time to time, but I’ve not had a bad experience at all, in fact I was very impressed with the salesman who I spoke to and I shall try to contact him again because I’d like to know if I can upgrade to a faster 7200 rpm hard disk. Actually speaking to a sales person before paying is a good idea with Dell as you can often get a little more than you wanted at roughly the same price. I guess that Dell salespeople work much like any other salesperson and so any sale is better than no sale at all and they may get commission too which makes sales people more eager to close a sale. You need to be a little careful because sales people will also try to get you to upgrade to something which you had not considered but will invariably cost more - but then I might be convinced if I only end up shelling out another 100 Euros or so. We’ll see.

If I do end up with a new laptop, I shall post a short review here.

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