Travel tip: take along your rates account

Posted on 3 March 2011

Yeah, everyone knows you should pack your passport if you’re travelling beyond our borders. But what about your municipal rates account?

I nearly had to travel sans dollars this morning to Lusaka because I didn’t have anything to verify my residential address. Turns out it’s vital if you want to buy foreign exchange from any bank other than your own. And Standard Bank doesn’t have a branch at Cape Town International Airport.

I was shoo’ed out of Absa Bank for this infringement. I tried Bidvest down the passage and got the Fica (Financial Intelligence Centre Act) lecture from the teller about needing to verify my residential address, then she reluctantly agreed to waiver the requirement “˜just this once’. (At least I now know I don’t look like an international money launderer.)

Turned out I was a repeat offender as my name came up on the system as having already received special dispensation once before. I’d obviously blanked out this unpleasant experience from my otherwise wonderful trip to Ireland last year. But that was last year and this year I’ve now had my “˜just this once’ special dispensation.

So I have dollars in pocket and am off to Zambia on one of those wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime pampered safaris. Time to focus on the great side of travel, rather than being mugged by bureaucracy.






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