The Swiss Bank Account

"Swiss Bank Account" . . . the phrase evokes spy stories with a 1950s flavor for me, with crime lords and intricate plots and crazy scientific gadgets. There is a bit of a mystique about them and the people who have them, shadowy figures with rich lifestyles and fortunes that no one is quite sure the size of.

That is, shadowy rich figures and everyone at CERN, though no one really cares about the size of our "fortunes". CERN's administration operates through Switzerland, and so we the CERN users all have to open a Swiss bank account (which is actually a bit tricky, as the IRS has been at odds with at least one Swiss bank lately, and so they don't care to work with Americans right now). The accounts lose much of their mystique when you actually have one yourself. Whatever the appeal may have been for all those mega-rich, shadowy figures in the 50s, I'm not seeing it on my end. Take, for example, the necessary procedure for me to check my account balance online, as I have an account intended for online access:

1. Go to my financial institution's website. Easy enough--it does have an English version.
2. Enter an account number (for my computing account with them, not my bank account) and a password, which is another number.
3. The website will produce another, ten digit number.
4. Insert debit card into the little card reader (shown above). Punch in number from website.
5. Enter pin number into little card reader. Press OK.
*Note: you need to do all this fairly quickly, before either website or card reader times out and makes you start over again.
6. Card reader will produce another number, which you then type into the website so you can finally access your account information.

Yup, that would be a total of five numbers to move around. The Swiss take their banking privacy and security very seriously, on behalf of their customers.