Banks that like to say yes.

Banks: You can't do with them and you most definitely can't do without

One of the worst

If you were to walk into any United Kingdon bank and inadvertently forget to take of your crash helmet, it's a fairly safe bet a few seconds later you'll lose the tips of a couple or three fingers as a seventeen tonne steel security screen crashes down in a third of a nano-second to protect the nervous cashier. Assuming you've walked in wearing nothing more sinister than a baseball cap, or maybe taken off any potentially offensive headgear outside, then you'll probably be served but not otherwise. Even then though you'll be compelled to converse with the forty six year old virgin behind the four centimetre thick security glasss through three minute circular holes because, bless her, she's scared of catching diphtheria. All of these things pre-suppose that of the forty minutes you still have left of your lunch hour you will actually reach the front of the queue.

Probably no better than most

In Spain, visiting your bank is an altogether more pleasant experience, walk into any branch here, they're all the same, and it's like being shown around an office on your first day of a new job. The usually bright, airy and spacious open plan interiors actually make you feel welcome, and, mine even has a kind of cheery yellow logo to help things along a bit. The difference between the two is stark; if you're lucky, in a typical High Street bank you'll have a narrow and confined space in which to wait, where, you can overhear every word the bloke being served is saying because his back is never more than three feet from you, even if you are the last person in the line of hassled people muttering impatiently.

The differences don't stop there either because the Spanish system is fucking brilliant and simple. You walk in, press a button on a small machine that somehow knows you've arrived and politely asks you to take a ticket. Dotted around the room are big screens which indicate the ticket number for the next customer and the free desk you will be attended to at, most of them also have a sexy little sound effect like something out of 24 so you always have this feeling of making progress. Even the Japs would be impressed. My favourite pastime whilst waiting my turn is to try and guess which svelte cashier I'll go to as the numbers tick down to mine. That's another thing you see, most Iberian banks are just like British Airways and never, ever employ frigid heifers.

Smile, you're in the bank

While customer service is anathema to any HSBC employee in the United Kingdom, for the leggy sylph with an Ultra Brite smile in any Mediterranean Building Society it's second nature; for her, being face to face with a client, money is of minor importance. Apart from the BBVA, who can equal any miserable British high street banking experience, being treated like a valued customer takes some getting used to. Occasionally, you would get to meet an old style English bank manager in his office, guaranteed if you had a business account, nowadays branch managers are too busy meeting Head Office sales targets for pensions,  mortgages and insurance to be bothered with being civil to customers. Something else then that Spain does different. Here, the Director, or Directora if a lady is in charge, has an office for private one to ones as you'd expect, but is equally often to be found on the "shop floor" in plain sight and frequently meets and greets his/her adoring public with a handshake or a kiss on either cheek.

Open plan - all the rage in Spain

It's almost as though that security glass with a pepper pot to speak through entices people to be abusive or aggresive, for me, conversing civilly either side of a desk really is the way to go. Having said that, even out here the crafty sods will still try and sting you at every opportunity. My bank, Caja Mediterráneo, popularly shortened to just three initials is supposed to be a non-profit making organisation, created for charitable and social causes. Oops my mistake. Just a fortnight ago, in a very agreeable small pueblo I tried to use two cards in their cash machine, which clearly had run out of cash, so by rights should really have been called just a machine. Undeterred, three doors down and across the street I used their card in a competitors hole in the wall which did yield my twenty euros. At a price. Next day, I politely suggested to the very attractive cashier, seated behind her IKEA desk in an open plan office, she might like to cancel the 2.40€ charge from yesterday. Her response? A spanish version of "Shag off mate, you should have used our machine somewhere else" or words to that effect.

Apologies for the crap photos but the miserable sods in my local anti-social and uncharitable company refused to let me in with my camera.