Last Thursday, I was paid for my first couple of weeks work at Enzyme. But no social insurance number = no bank account = nowhere to bank a cheque. Sigh.
On Friday I finally got a social insurance number (this involved a rather enjoyable couple of hours out of work, so that was fun). But… both of the banks in Sainte-Adèle close at 4pm on Fridays (and, in fact, every other day of the week but Thursdays). They’re not open at all on Saturdays and Sundays. Crazy.
So today was the first chance I had to open a bank account. I stopped in at the Caisse Populaire (what we in the UK would call a Mutual, were there any left) and asked to open an account. The nice young lady on reception smiled, apologised, and said she had no appointments available before July 25th. Pfah. I want my money now.
On to the Banque Nationale, then. The receptionist there smiled, apologised, and said it would be impossible to see me before 5 o’clock. This was at 4.45. Guess with whom I opened an account…
Here, you have to pay for absolutely every service at the bank. It’s a bit strange – $1 to deposit a cheque, and so on. The bank does “packages”, where you get a certain number of transactions and whatnot for a set monthly fee. Coming from somewhere where any attempt by banks to charge you for your own money makes newspaper headlines, it takes some getting used to…