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Harrenys Targaryen

Your bank?

I opened two accounts with Washington Mutual (the state with Seattle, not the seat of the Evil Empire) yesterday:



Anyone else here a WaMu junkie?
Benjamin [inactive]

I'm about to open an account with the Bank of Scotland. I currently have an account with NatWest, but I'm going to close that very soon, because there aren't any NatWest branches in Scotland, and although I know that that doesn't technically matter these days, I'd feel safer knowing that there'd be branches that I could go into.

Ideally, I'd have chosen Clydesdale Bank, because I find their information and website easier to understand than those of the Bank of Scotland. But unfortunately I can't, because I have to open an account before I move to Scotland, and there aren't any Clydesdale branches in or near Birmingham.

Then there's also the Royal Bank of Scotland, which I think I'm supposed to be boycotting for some ethical reason — can't remember why though.
Walker

Re: Your bank?

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
I opened two accounts with Washington Mutual (the state with Seattle, not the seat of the Evil Empire) yesterday:



Anyone else here a WaMu junkie?


Is that a bank? It looks more like a cocktail lounge, well except of course for the Barbie family on the wall.
Benjamin [inactive]

I actually thought it looked like an airport check-in desk.

I think this is a bit more my style — the headquarters of the Bank of Scotland, in Edinburgh:


And Bank of Scotland money, one of the three types of Scottish paper money:
Loic

Very impressive facade of the Bank of Scotland.

For me, I have a current account with a few local banks that primarily operate in the region. They are DBS and OCBC banks.

I have a semi-defunct account with HSBC but I have not withdrawn any money from it before. It was supposed to be a sort of savings fund where my parents deposit their spare largesse (if any) in it.
Harrenys Targaryen

Benjamin: am I mistaken if I assume that Clydesdale and Royal Bank of Scotland produce the other two kinds of bills? If so, who's responsible for doing so?

Walker: yes, what you see is the standard interior of every Washington Mutual branch. The lighting is out of this world, eh? WaMu wants to distinguish itself from its (comparatively clueless and uptight) domestic competitors through, as the teller who helped me activate my accounts said, "informed informality"...hmm, would you happen to be a member of Swedbank?
Benjamin [inactive]

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
Benjamin: am I mistaken if I assume that Clydesdale and Royal Bank of Scotland produce the other two kinds of bills? If so, who's responsible for doing so?

Yes, that's right.

Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes:


Clydesdale banknotes:


It's really confusing, actually. Then there's the added problem, whereby English money is widely accepted in Scotland, but Scottish money tends not to be accepted in England, except in the very northern parts of English which are near to Scotland. I don't know what I'm going to do when I go to visit my parents during the university holidays. We tried handing over Scottish money in England after we came back from spending a week in Scotland last year, and the people at the till just looked at us blankly.

They don't all produce the same values of notes either. The Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank produce £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100 notes, whilst the Royal Bank of Scotland aditionally produce a £1 note.
Walker

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
Walker: yes, what you see is the standard interior of every Washington Mutual branch. The lighting is out of this world, eh? WaMu wants to distinguish itself from its (comparatively clueless and uptight) domestic competitors through, as the teller who helped me activate my accounts said, "informed informality"...hmm, would you happen to be a member of Swedbank?


How come other banks are relatively clueless? Being informed must be one of the most important things for a bank, I reckon. Swedbank... it used to be called Föreningssparbanken. But then they had to change that. I still haven't gotten used to their new name and it's almost embarrassing to say it in a serious manner.
André in Zuid-Afrika

I've been a client of Absa for most of my adult life. It used to be a group of four banks, jointly known as Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA). Eventually the four banks merged, forming a single bank, which adopted the name Absa (which now stands for...well... Absa).
Harrenys Targaryen

loic: are you going to partition that dormant HSBC account amongst your kids?

Benjamin: is intranational currency exchange within Britain a significant domestic issue, and do Wales and Northern Ireland have their own banknote designs? I also wonder whether £500 and/or £1000 banknotes were once used in Scotland...

Walker: American customer service isn't exactly the worldliest of its kind, but given the country's ample population, other (non-WaMu) banks will gain gullible clients at the same rate as they lose skeptical ones. Hopefully, Swedbank works better than it sounds - are you affiliated with them at the moment, or do you bank elsewhere?

André: that acronym sounds vaguely Zulu.
Benjamin [inactive]

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
Benjamin: is intranational currency exchange within Britain a significant domestic issue,

Not really, no. Although the future of the concept of the UK certainly is.

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
and do Wales and Northern Ireland have their own banknote designs? I also wonder whether £500 and/or £1000 banknotes were once used in Scotland...

Wales don't; they use Bank of England notes. In Northern Ireland, however, there are four types of banknotes in circulation, and are produced by four different banks: the Bank of Ireland, the Ulster Bank, the Northern Bank, and the First Trust Bank (formally the Allied Irish Bank, which was formally the Provincial Bank of Ireland). Previously, the National Bank and the Belfast Banking Company also used to issue banknotes in Northern Ireland.
Walker

Quote:
Walker: American customer service isn't exactly the worldliest of its kind, but given the country's ample population, other (non-WaMu) banks will gain gullible clients at the same rate as they lose skeptical ones. Hopefully, Swedbank works better than it sounds - are you affiliated with them at the moment, or do you bank elsewhere?


I see. Well, you do seem to have a few rather unique banks over there. That bank that Michael Moore goes to in Bowling for Columbine comes to mind. He opens an account and they give him a rifle. You seem to be happy with WaMu and that's good. Yes, Swedbank holds my cash.
André in Zuid-Afrika

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
André: that acronym sounds vaguely Zulu.



Nobody here knows what language it is, which is probably why it works in this country with 11 official languages.


Absa.... That works in all of our languages...

Elaine

Re: Your bank?

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
Anyone else here a WaMu junkie?


I bank with them. How can I not? They're practically on every street corner and usually attached to a Starbucks, so that one can bank while sipping on their venti half-calf soy latte. I usually avoid going in them though b/c most of them here have those annoying double door security/scanning chambers that confuse the hell out of the elderly and end up delaying all of us who simply want to utilize the ATMs. The one over at Sunset and Vine has beautiful Millard Sheets-Susan Hertel mosaic murals of old-time Hollywood stars all over the interior and exteriors. I was admiring them one day while waiting for a friend and thought, "Gosh, in 1000 years archaelogists will excavate this site and think we worshipped at the altar of John Wayne."
Pauline

Is this the Bank of Langcafé dollar ?

Porthos

I'm with Wells Fargo.

Quote:
Wales don't; they use Bank of England notes. In Northern Ireland, however, there are four types of banknotes in circulation, and are produced by four different banks: the Bank of Ireland, the Ulster Bank, the Northern Bank, and the First Trust Bank (formally the Allied Irish Bank, which was formally the Provincial Bank of Ireland). Previously, the National Bank and the Belfast Banking Company also used to issue banknotes in Northern Ireland.


Just curious. Would "Wales don't" be considered proper grammar in Britain? I say this because I believe in the U.S., the conventional form would be "Wales doesn't".

I find it odd that Wales seems to be less removed from all things pertaining to England when compared to Scotland, although I think of Wales as being more different from England. If they're different, and if they've retained their language to a much greater degree, and therefore their national heritage, you would suspect that they would wish for greater independence from London.

Scotland has its own national bank, its own parliament, etc. Wales does not. 30% of Wales speaks Welsh, while only a very small fraction of Scotland even speaks Gaelic as a second language.
Benjamin [inactive]

Porthos wrote:
Just curious. Would "Wales don't" be considered proper grammar in Britain? I say this because I believe in the U.S., the conventional form would be "Wales doesn't".

I say 'Wales don't', so yes, it is obviously completely 'proper'.

Actually, in Britain, it's very normal to say things like 'the government are', 'the Labour Party are', 'Wales are', 'my family are' etc. — possibly because we see them as being made up of many people.

Porthos wrote:
I find it odd that Wales seems to be less removed from all things pertaining to England when compared to Scotland,

Well, Wales has been integrated with England for much longer than Scotland has. There's also more of a physical distance between Scotland and England than there is between Wales and England — as in, there's a large rural area between the last city in northern England and the first city southern Scotland, whereas Cardiff is very near to Bristol.

Porthos wrote:
although I think of Wales as being more different from England.

Well, yes and no. I haven't been to Wales for about seven years, but I would say that, to me, Scotland and Scottish people in general seem somewhat more 'foreign' (if that's the right word) than Wales and Welsh people do.

Porthos wrote:
If they're different, and if they've retained their language to a much greater degree, and therefore their national heritage, you would suspect that they would wish for greater independence from London.

Apparently not. Actually, I might say that Wales is perhaps more patriotic than Scotland, but that there is far greater support for full independence in Scotland than in Wales. In Scotland, for example, the SNP, who support full independence, actually manage to sort of win the Scottish Parliament election, whilst Plaid Cymru haven't managed to win the Welsh Assembly election and don't really support Welsh independence anyway.

Porthos wrote:
Scotland has its own national bank,

Not really — the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank are all private enterprises. But I see what you mean. Scotland also has it's own national church — the Church of Scotland — whilst Wales does not as such.

Porthos wrote:
its own parliament, etc. Wales does not.

Wales does have its own national assembly, known as the Welsh Assembly, which is similar to the Scottish Parliament, such that both Scotland and Wales have their own First Minister. However, you're right that it does not have as many powers as the Scottish Parliament.

Porthos wrote:
30% of Wales speaks Welsh,

I think it's more like 15-20%, although in rural areas it's much higher.

Porthos wrote:
while only a very small fraction of Scotland even speaks Gaelic as a second language.

About 1%, yes. Although Scottish Gaelic is often perceived as essentially a regional language within Scotland itself.
Julian

Harrenys Targaryen wrote:
WaMu wants to distinguish itself from its (comparatively clueless and uptight) domestic competitors through, as the teller who helped me activate my accounts said, "informed informality"


I'm not sure like those tellers being out in the open like that. It's a bank not a coffee house. I prefer my tellers behind the counter protected by bullet-proof glass where they can guard my hard-earned money.

Quote:
Lawsuit pending: Washington Mutual Inc. says it moved tellers out from behind counters to encourage "friendly customer service in a welcoming retail environment," a design it proudly patented.

WaMu customer Jaime Quiroz Sanchez, a real estate agent and landlord from Lancaster, says the coffeehouse approach to banking got him robbed at knifepoint of $20,805.

That's the opening of a story from the LA Times. How did WaMu's interior design lead to Sanchez's mugging? Sanchez wanted to deposit $20,805 with WaMu, but was refused when the teller discovered that his driver's license had expired. In the meantime, however, they'd shown off his big pile of cash to everyone in the bank, one $100 bill at a time.

The teller suggested that Sanchez renew the license at a nearby Department of Motor Vehicles office and return afterward, he said.

Sanchez said he told the teller he didn't feel comfortable leaving the branch with all that cash. "He said, 'I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do,' " Sanchez said.

According to Sanchez, the bank's security cameras recorded images of the bandit inside the branch and then outside as he left. The man accosted him as he approached his car, Sanchez said, and after a brief struggle robbed him at knifepoint and fled on foot. No arrest has been made.

Sanchez has filed suit in LA, accusing WaMu of "negligence and reckless misconduct."

Julian

Pauline wrote:
Is this the Bank of Langcafé dollar ?



Yup, and the one billion dollar bill looks like this:


Click to see full size image

But it's extremely rare and highly valued.
Walker

Julian wrote:
Pauline wrote:
Is this the Bank of Langcafé dollar ?



Yup, and the one billion dollar bill looks like this:


Click to see full size image

But it's extremely rare and highly valued.


Haha! Nice work!
Loic

And the Langcafe currency would be appropriately called the LCR (Langcafe Rand), I suppose?

HT: Oh yes. I ought to actually close down my HSBC account and buy a CD instead with a higher rate of return than the meagre interest rates which HSBC is currently offering me.

That way, my children'd get a more handsome legacy.
Pauline

Julian wrote:
Pauline wrote:
Is this the Bank of Langcafé dollar ?



Yup, and the one billion dollar bill looks like this:


Click to see full size image

But it's extremely rare and highly valued.


Wow!!! It's incredible and wonderful !!!! It's magic!!!
Daniel

Scottish and Northern Irish money are Pound Sterling, the same as English ones, so they should be accepted anywhere in the UK, according to the law. That's why it is actually illegal to refuse Scottish money in England or English money in Scotland yet in England Scottish money is always refused. In Scotland, we accept English money without any problem. I don't know why it should be different in England. But then in Scotland, we refuse Northern Irish money too...

It's silly.

Incidentally speaking, the other day I went to the corner shop to buy something and got interesting change: a one pound coin from the Isle of Man and £5 note from the Bank of Ireland...

EDIT: And I notice something odd about the banks here in the UK. We have English banks in Scotland and when you go to the English bank cash machines they always produce English banknotes, but always Scottish banknotes if you go to the Scottish bank cash machines. Yet in England, ALL bank cash machines, regardless of whether they are Scottish banks or English banks, they ALWAYS produce English banknotes...
André in Zuid-Afrika

Julian wrote:
Pauline wrote:
Is this the Bank of Langcafé dollar ?



Yup, and the one billion dollar bill looks like this:


Click to see full size image

But it's extremely rare and highly valued.


Very, very rare!
André in Zuid-Afrika

loic wrote:
And the Langcafe currency would be appropriately called the LCR (Langcafe Rand), I suppose?



Of course!

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