Pure Twaddle

Yep, I’m splitting off my Cairo experiences into another blog: incairo.gijv.com. Here’s to hoping it’s not so much twaddle.

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The following is a description of my attempt to open a bank account with HSBC Egypt:

I enter the branch and find about three dozen bored customers calmly waiting for their number to be called. Where to obtain a number is non-obvious, so I hang around waiting for someone to finish at the desk closest to the door. After five minutes of standing dumbly, I hear a woman’s voice behind me say in English, “Can I help you, sir?”

“Ah, yes! I would like to open an account here.”

The woman, in her early 30s, I guess, furrows her brow and says, “Hmm. Ok, please wait a minute.”

I sit down and join the gathered, immobile Egyptians. The woman returns and asks for my passport. She disappears and I’m left alone for several minutes staring at the pretty tellers processing the masses.

The woman returns again and asks, in front of the entire waiting room, “How much will you be depositing today?” I say quietly, “About $800.” “$800,000″ she says loudly. “No problem.” I had no bag. Where the hell did she think I was stashing over three quarters of a million dollars on me?

I correct her. She says, “Well, you know, we require a minimum of $2,000 in an account. Will you be able to do that?”

“Yes. But I’ll need to transfer money from my US bank.”

“But you will be able to maintain that, yes?”

“Um, yes.”

“Please follow me.” She leads me to a desk in the back of the large room. I realize she thinks I want to open an account in US dollars, so I tell her that I’m a student at the AUC and that I’m just looking to open an account in Egyptian pounds.

“Egyptian pounds?” She looks worried. “But, why?”

“Because I now live in Egypt and want to pay bills here.”

“What sort of bills?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Rent, tuition…”

“But you can do those in cash here. Egyptians work mostly in cash.”

“Yes, but I would also like to open a cell phone account and they require a bank account.”

“I see. Well, you will need to maintain at least 5,000 Egyptian pounds in this bank account. Will you be able to do that?”

This is getting annoying. “Seeing as it’s considerably less than the $2,000 I would have been able to maintain in a US dollar account, then yes.”

“Hmm. So you have Egyptian pounds with you today?”

“No, I would like to exchange my dollars for pounds and deposit them.”

“Oh! I wouldn’t do that! We don’t give a very good exchange rate here.”

“What’s the rate?”

“I don’t know. But I know it’s much better outside the bank.”

“Can you suggest a place where I will get a better rate?”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

Despite all this, I decide to proceed with opening the account. I defer depositing my money so I can find a better exchange rate. I tell her this and she warns me that there is a 40 pound fee per month for each time my account is under 5,000 pounds.

“When will this fee occur?”

“I don’t know! The system does it! Only the system knows!”

“So I have to deposit my money today?”

“No, no. You can do it later.”

“Good,” I say. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“We’re closed tomorrow.”

“OK. I’ll come Saturday.”

“We’re closed Saturday. It’s our weekend.”

“Sunday it is.”

She hands me a letter “welcoming” me to HSBC. At the bottom of the letter it says I will receive a copy of all the documents I signed stating fees, conditions, etc. I ask her for these copies.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“This letter states I will get copies of everything.”

“What? Really?” She takes the letter and looks at it. “No, no. This letter is the documents [sic] it’s talking about.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, yes it is.”

We go back and forth about the meaning of the sentence. It’s only when we reach abstract opinions on the need for self-referential documents to exist that I give up. I’m returning on Sunday to close the account. Sure, I’m losing the 40 pound account opening fee, but if it’s this much hassle just to give them my cash, just imagine how hard it will be to get it back.

Welcome to Egypt.

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