I knew I would get around to opening a bank account, but I figured I had time.  Time to research which bank offered the best free checking, the one closest to home, with the best hours.  There was no rush because I had come with traveller’s checks to exchange for cash that should last me a few months.  After all, things are still done in cash here.  Just ten years ago, I paid all my rent and bills in cash.  Many restaurants do not take credit cards, and many stores will not accept them for a low amount.In the States, I routinely charge items costing less than a dollar.

Then, just before signing the rental contract for my current apartment, I learned about the new law going into effect in summer 2012, mandating that no transactions over 1000 euros be conducted in cash.  They must be by check or bank transfer (or credit card).  My initial rent and security deposit must be paid by bank transfer.  And the bank must be Italian.

There was no escaping it; I had to open a bank account in Rome within 48 hours in order to be able to move into my new apartment.

I chose one that had a big branch near my apartment and I had heard has a relationship with a large U.S. bank.  As an attorney and a Virgo, I like to do that sort of intelligence-gathering myself, but I accepted the rumor as true and trotted down to the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro branch near St. Peter’s Basilica.

It was early morning.  The lady could not have been nicer, and kept referring to me as “Dottoressa” – a very respectful term used for ladies with university degrees, without knowing whether or not I had one (I have, like, three and a half, for the record).   Everything was going so well at first, until she asked me for my Codice Fiscale.

The Codice Fiscale is kind of like our Social Security Number.  It is unique and identifies Italian people for nearly very purpose.  When I lived here the last time, I had gone down to the only office in Rome where such things are issued (and one must go in person, of course), to obtain not just the number itself but also the green card that it’s printed on.  I memorized the number just like I memorized my SSN 20 years ago, and still have it memorized.  The green card I originally obtained hasn’t been seen in years.

No problem!  I recited my memorized Codice Fiscale to the lady, who frowned and said that I must show the actual card.  But why?  In the States I just rattle off my SSN on the phone all the time to prove it’s me.  What difference does the card make?  It just confirms what I am reciting to you.  If you need an I.D., I thought, that’s a different story – and I’ve got that, too.  No, the lady said.  No Codice Fiscale card, no bank account.  I would have to go back to the same office I had been to ten years earlier, wait in the same line(s), and get a replacement card and come back.

BUT – that branch, large and centrally located as it was, would be closed after lunch.  Not the whole bank, but the part that creates new accounts, that part would be closed.  Okay.  So, she cheerfully suggested, I should go to the Codice Fiscale office, and then go to their main branch located on the famous Via Veneto, right by the American Embassy.  “Lei conosce l’ambasciata Americana, si?”  You know the American Embassy, right?  “Si.”  Yes.

So I trekked across downtown spent the next few hours in the Codice Fiscale office.  Thank goodness I had my new scooter to take me there, otherwise the buses would have added hours to my trip.  That office is one of many wretched hives of scum and villainy that punctuate this glorious city.  The highlight for me was helping a desperate Englishwoman who was trying to resolve a very complicated tax for her transferred family without speaking English.  She was very grateful, and I was pleased.

It was about 1:00 by the time I got my Codice Fiscale temporary card.  Indeed, I was not mistaken, that was the number I had had memorized and provided to the bank lady.  Only now I had an actual piece of paper with actual ink on it in order to really prove it to the lady.

Knowing the Vatican branch would be closed, I took my piece of paper and headed to the main branch by the Embassy, getting horribly lost along the way despite having been there fifty times.  I asked a cab driver on the way there, and although we were just a few blocks away, he did not know.  This did not inspire confidence.

I finally got to the Via Veneto branch.  I had been told to ask for Barbara.  So I did.  Barbara did not understand why I had been told to ask for her.  She also did not understand why I thought I could just waltz into her bank and expect to be able to open a checking account without an appointment.  She was very condescending.

I told her that I had just waltzed into the Vatican branch that morning and that they had been all too happy to give me an account but that I didn’t have my Codice Fiscale card handy.  Now I have it.  And I was told to ask for you, Barbie!  Fine, she said, but she also needed me to provide a rental contract for my apartment.

Why?  Why would the bank need a copy of the rental contract for my apartment?  What does that have to do with anything?  What if I were living with a friend (up until that point, I had been)?  Plus, I am asking for the privilege of being able to deposit money in their imaginary, electronic, digital sky, not a mortgage.  If I abscond, I will be leaving money in their account, owing them nothing.  But there was no arguing with Barbara.

The real problem was that I needed the bank account before I could get a rental contract.  Remember, the point of the account was to transfer the deposit into the landlord’s bank account, and only then would I have a contract.  Barbara said she couldn’t help me, and basically invited me to have a nice life.

Later, an Italian friend asked incredulously why I had not simply told Barbara that I was a lawyer.  “Those titles really carry a lot of weight in Italy, still.”  I’m not sure where I would have squeezed that into the conversation, at least not smoothly.  But I thought that was a culturally fascinating piece of advice.

I went back up to North Rome where I was staying temporarily with a friend’s parents, feeling totally dejected and wanting a nap.  It was after 3:00 and I had accomplished nothing.  I had no bank account and I needed to pay my deposit within a couple of days.

Something told me to just try the little bank down the street in this suburban neighborhood.  A branch of the SAME BANK that had been giving me the runaround all day. So I trudged down there, waltzed in, did not announce that I was an attorney, and managed to get a bank account without having to show a rental contract or have an appointment.  After having worked on nothing else from 8:30 that morning until 4:30 that afternoon, I had finally managed to open a freaking simple checking account… like the one a child can open in the States online at midnight in about five minutes.

Even though the small neighborhood branch was infinitely more helpful than the other branches, I STILL was asked to go meet the branch manager in order for him to, and I quote, “make sure I was okay.”  I guess I am “okay,” but it felt very judgmental and even discriminatory.  Whether they gave me a bank account was, apparently, at least partially based on my appearance.

And only after I had opened the account did I find out there are a ton of fees associated with having a checking account.  They charge you something every month for the service of letting your electronic money float in their electronic clouds.  Probably it was not smart of me not to ask about fees, but hey – you don’t know what you don’t know, and I’ve always had free checking in the States.  And if memory serves me, the bank account I had in Rome 10 years ago did not have monthly fees.  So, whatever.  Nice of them to mention the fees while I was signing their enormous scrolls with a quill pen.  (It felt like that.)

By the way, I then had to scramble around for a couple of days, exchanging traveller’s checks (which the American Express office told me, per Italian law, could only be exchanged in amounts UNDER 1000 euros a day, while the exchange office across the piazza said was totally untrue and they could cash like a million), and taking money out of the ATM in order to have something to put into the new checking account.  All so I could pay the deposit on the apartment I am sitting in as I type…. Maddening.

That day was one of many days I have had and surely will have in which I have heard Uncle Sam beckoning me home…  On the other hand, this was all about a month ago, and I survived.