I'm due to fly to Australia in a couple of hours so thought I'd post my last blog from London for a few weeks. There is a danger this will turn into a rant, so frustrating has my last couple of weeks been... in fact, a list might be an easier and faster way to articulate myself today:

Two weeks ago, I pulled off the amazing feat of being in two places at exactly the same time—Poland and London. The me in Poland had the better time I suspect, spending about half my monthly take home over 5 transactions. The real me was pottering around, playing golf down at my local driving range and spending much more austere sums. My bank merrily allowed this to continue despite me flagging a problem to them on the Friday.

Come the following Saturday, with a card cancelled and an empty account, I head off to New York, with the promises of a new card waiting for me when I get home.

Get home. No card. It's not even been ordered. Heading on holiday in 3 days = no card for weeks. With work deadlines looming and dreading the prospect of arriving home and then having to wait 10 days for a new card, I head to the local branch (having had a very hard time finding their branch number so i could try to set a meeting up to speak to the manager when I arrived—but eventually I did, so a minor victory there!)

Explained situation to the manager—shoulder shrugging—'it happens all the time'

Next banking challenge—for some unknown reason my trusty Amex card gives up the ghost on Saturday night. However, this time, Amex can replace my card within 24hrs. Very slick. The downside was I have to go pick it up from central London—cue exciting / death defying ride into town on my scooter. If this analyst thing falls over I'll make a good courier.

There's a few more parts to this pathetic story but I think I've gone on enough already. My gripe, and that of many, many others like me is simple: Why is all this such a total hassle? Why does my bank insist on taking such a high priority in my life when really, it should form only part of the background static, there when I need it.

Its a fair deal I think—I leave money with them, they invest it in God knows what, give it to God knows who and more often than not, make a heap of cash doing so. In return, I don't hassle them much.

So what's the problem? People, process or technology? The financial services sector is generally head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to systems and processes. Until, I find, when it comes to looking after me, in one of the busiest two weeks of the entire year.

I have the horrible feeling the problem is a combination of all three: people not doing what they said they would, processes not coping with ever so slightly non-standard information, security systems which are too stupid to realise that the same card being used in two locations 1000 miles apart is supposed to be impossible... a trifecta of nastiness that is simply never really going to get sorted out until there is such an insane level of security built into every day financial transactions that we might as well all go back to bartering with fruit and buttons.

So maybe that's the payoff for our relative freedom—we can pretty do what we like, but we risk someone taking advantage of us from time to time. I can live with that, just not this week.

I'm going in holiday.

If I get something ripped off in 40m of gin clear sea off Osprey reef next week, at least it won't be my bank account :-)