I went to talk to my bank to transfer some money to Blighty.

“It’s much easier to do if you go online” said the helpful girl.

“Yes but I can’t log in, and I need to send some money to Blighty”

“Why can’t you log in?”

“I don’t know why – it just says ‘accounts not mapped yet’. Do you know what that means?”

“No. Call the support team and ask. Transferring money is so much easier online!”

“Yes I know but I can’t log in…”

She paused to think for a while as I had clearly stretched her customer service skills to the limit.

“Can I arrange to transfer some money from here, now?”

“Yes but I will need your IBAN number and your Swift code!”

“I have the IBAN number. If I give you that can you find out the Swift code?”

“No, you need to look it up online. It is actually much easier to do a transfer online because our system will find the Swift code for you!”

“But I can’t log in online…”

“Then I need the Swift code.”

“I don’t have it.”

“You should talk to our support guys, they will help you to get logged in. It’s easy to then transfer money online!”

I smiled and said ‘Thank you’.

I walked away wondering how we got so technologically advanced.