I have written before about the challenges of banking in Ajijic, LakeChapala.

Things, however, have come a long way in the 15 years we have lived here. One no longer has to sign over their first born to make a deposit.

Normally, I am now capable of doing all of our corporate and personal banking without incident and with a minimum of bloodshed.

Most of the banks here now have English speaking staff to help the expats complete their transactions and online there is English now available.

The wonderful English speaking person we have, however, is not actually located (more…)

Both these endeavors (as I had mentioned in a previous blog) can be very challenging indeed.

This was not the case today. I set out this morning to go to Chapala to try to pay my property taxes and get some money into the hands of our daughter in London. Although she was equipped with a credit card to cover her living expenses until money from gainful employment kicked in, for some reason the card was rejected at every ATM she tried even though the credit card company assured me everything was swell with the card and the credit.

So equipped with the Banamex account # of her boyfriend I went with trepidation to try and make a cash deposit into his account which they could access with his debit card for said account. Now if you have ever tried to make a deposit into a Mexican bank account the expression “easier said than done” immediately springs to mind. Usually you need some kind of picture identification and whatever you take with you is not the correct one they need. This, of course, can be very frustrating as you are trying to put money into the bank not stage a heist. (more…)