It’s a simple thing, really. I want to pay a bill. I have my bank account details and their bank account details. I need to make the payment today.

In the UK, I would go to a (any) branch of my bank and make the payment (if it wasn’t online). This would be a simple thing. They would check, via computer, that I had enough funds. They would make the payment by the computer. I may have to sign something or use my bank card. The payment would be made and, within a couple of days (or the same day if the same bank) the payment would be done. Easy.

Ma, siamo in Italia (but, we are in Italy). I go to the nearest bank. The same bank as mine but a different branch. No, they can’t do it. But they can send the slip that I fill in, to my branch, who will make the payment. Or I can pay it by cash and then they can do it from there. This, I remind you, is the same bank, with branches all over the North of Italy (maybe, even, all of Italy!). It’s just not my branch.

OK then, I say, can I withdraw the money from my account and do it that way. Apparently not. You see, my money is only at the branch I have the current account with. But, what she can do, if I fill in the form, is to fax the form to my bank and they will do it today.  Fax!  Perhaps carrier pigeon would make the whole system run faster.

Wait, I think, they have computers.  But, not, it can’t be done.  So, I ask myself, what is the point in banking with a ‘nationwide’ bank if you can’t do much except withdraw money from the cash machines?

However, I really need to pay it and so I fill in the form. She telephones my branch to confirm that I have a current account there (I wonder what is the point in computers here?) and asks for the fax number so that she can fax it through.

So, she will, by now, have faxed it through. Someone at my branch will have typed it into the computer and then the payment will be made in God knows how many days.

And then I went outside to withdraw money from the cash machine – which, if I didn’t have enough money in the account, wouldn’t have let me have it.

I am puzzled as to how this country actually works at all. Sometimes, it’s like stepping through a portal into the Dark Ages.