The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

banking

Cuenta de horrores

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While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.

I had to go to the bank today.

Readers who have lived in Mexico just experienced an involuntary shudder of dread. It’s never fun to go to the bank, anywhere, but Mexico’s obsession with paperwork makes the experience downright hellish here.

And the thing is, my bank is actually relatively good! It’s one of the smaller ones, so there aren’t huge lines at the local branch, the people are pretty friendly, and the branch manager saw Lesley’s name on one of my forms and asked if a previous problem she had was resolved, which is like the closest I’ve ever gotten to a Jimmy Stewart, Wonderful Life-style banking experience.

(One downside of having a smaller Mexican bank: It’s harder to deliver money to anyone else. Most services in Mexico, from the electric company to a cooking class, require you to transfer money directly from your account to theirs to make a payment. This can be done through an interbank account number known as a CLABE, but for some reason, instead of just noting what their CLABE is, a lot of services will just provide a list of their account numbers at the nation’s largest banks. So for a fictional example, if I’m a client of Banco Gigante, I just look for the power company’s Banco Gigante account number on my bill and pay accordingly. It’s an intrabank transfer from one account to the other, and Banco Gigante can handle it. But if I’m a client of little Banco Chiquito, the power company probably doesn’t have a Banco Chiquito account, so I have to call the power company and ask what their Banco Gigante CLABE is before I can pay. It’s a big pain.

“Why don’t you just write a check?” you ask. HA! Checks technically exist here, but I have never seen them used. People don’t even write checks to family members. They just do bank transfers. Assuming they can figure out each other’s CLABEs. Anyway. Is this practice normal in other countries? I only know the American way, which is that we write checks, and when you get a check you assume it will clear. (Or maybe now you use Paypal, I guess.) That’s just how it’s done. But maybe the U.S. is an aberration? I do remember in India, our friend Vikas attempted to pay for a hotel with an advance bank transfer, but it didn’t go through and he ended up having to pay in cash. So there’s that.)

Even the good banks can’t get around that insatiable Mexican need, in government and in business, for clients to produce documents proving every detail of their lives. The phone bill is proof of residence, but the cable bill won’t suffice, unless you get digital phone service through your cable provider, I learned today. I also did not have an acceptable visa, not because my visa isn’t legit, but because they just don’t encounter visas like it very often. But they decided they could make an exception for me. Thanks, guys.

Once my transaction was approved in principle, the mounds of paperwork began. Banks like for you to sign, not just initial, every page of a contract. Including the copies you’ll be keeping yourself. They also like for your signatures to match as closely as possible, and they will scrutinize your handwriting like fortune-tellers to divine whether you are the same person who just signed that other page five seconds ago. (Actually the worst experience I had like that was in the tax office, where the clerk kept made me re-sign my name about five times to get my signature matching perfectly with the one in my visa.)

It took three hours to get my business done. On the plus side, they gave me free coffee.

A few hundred signatures later, we now have a Mexican bank account

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I’ve been querying friends for a few weeks now on where we should open a bank account.

Pretty much everyone gave a different answer, so a few days ago I visited three banks. In the end I chose Ixe. They required the most pesos to open an account, but the bank executive there was friendly and patient, and he gave me his cell phone number. (As a sidenote, I had the worst experience at Bancomer. The bored-looking rep made me write down all the relevant info on a tiny receipt and he said he’d never heard of their special banking program for foreigners. “Dejame checar,” he said, which means “let me check.” I’m really starting to hate “dejame checar.” It’s a brush-off in sheep’s clothing.) Banamex was okay — I didn’t go with them because the crazy lines there scare me.

So Wednesday we went to Ixe to make it official. The nice exec offered us something to drink from the branch’s tiny cafe, and we declined. I figured it wouldn’t take too long. Naturally, we ended up being there for almost two hours.

We filled out a detailed application that asked us when and where we were born, our nationalities, how long we’ve lived in Mexico. (In the “civil status” section, I left the “regimen conyugal” part blank. Does that mean what I think it does…?) We waited while everything was neatly retyped, and then printed out for us to read. Then we fixed a few errors and waited some more.

After that came the flood of papers. We signed that everything was correct, that we were indeed opening a bank account, that “this is really me, and I am standing here in person, and this is my signature.” Finally we activated our checks and temporary debit card. Interestingly, every check here has to be activated here a special PIN number. I’m guessing that’s so you don’t get robbed blind. Also, even though we opened up a joint account, the checks only come in the principal account holder’s name. (ie, Crayton.) I can sign the checks and get my own debit card. But the checks don’t have my name. Oh well, I’m just the homemaker. I cook things.

We ended up getting renter’s insurance with Ixe, too. So we’re covered if the nearby volcano ever erupts.