1) On Monday, May 11, I emailed my Spanish bank details to the Swiss bank.
2) Within minutes, I receive an automated reply from my banker in French saying that he’s out of the office.
3) On Tuesday, May 12, I receive an email from my banker’s secretary informing me that, per the bank’s policy, because the account I gave them is in my wife’s name, they will need a signed fax from me confirming the information. Yes, a fax.
4) On Wednesday, May 13, I receive an email from my banker saying, “Yesterday you received an email from my secretary asking for a fax. While that is our normal policy, in this case, we are in a hurry to get these American accounts closed, so I will send the money and close the account unless I hear otherwise from you by the end of the day.”

Nice. The other consequence of the news in this blog post is that it makes sense to put all our joint bank accounts primarily in my wife’s name from now on regardless of the country the bank is in, don’t you think?