I spent a week recently in the north east Scotland country town in which I grew up, and took time out from my busy schedule of burping nephew number two and marvelling at nephew number one’s “belly-floppers” down his slide to pay a visit to the bank.

Walking into a bank branch is a rare experience for me — especially this certain Aberdeenshire branch of Lloyds at which I opened my current account aeons ago — given the wonders of internet banking. But you can’t cash a cheque in cyberspace. Standing at the teller’s desk as she accessed my account details to pay in said cheque, I was all ready to skedaddle out the door, back to my busy schedule, when lights started flashing, sirens sounding: a customer in the black!

Days earlier, a small inheritance from my grandmother’s estate had cleared into my account — not a colossal sum of money but a cash-strapped, government-backed bank needs to hold on to all the money it can. “You’ve been selected for a personal review,” she said. Not quite like my Lottery numbers being drawn, but I was mildly curious.

Branch manager David (lime and lilac shirt-and-tie combo) emerged and led me into his windowless cubbyhole. “So, I see you live in London now. Aberdeen’s like the big city for us.” I smiled. So, the review.

My current account: did I want to upgrade from the Platinum packaged account (£12 a month, mobile phone insurance, AA breakdown cover, annual worldwide travel insurance) to the Premier packaged account (£17 a month, mobile phone insurance, AA breakdown cover, annual worldwide travel insurance for the whole family)? Being single and without offspring, no.

My credit card: “I see you use it on occasion for big-ticket items and pay the balance in full every month. That’s no good for us, but it’s the way you should use it.” Very honest.

“Now, there are a few wee things that we’re telling people about,” he continued. Uh-huh. “Online fraud — you might have seen in the papers — is rising and we have a few wee things. . . our new text alert service and full ID fraud protection. . . it’ll cost you a wee bit of money, though.” A bargain at £2.50 or £6.99 a month. I think I’ll pass.

“So, what do you do in London then.” Journalist. Sunday Times. “Oh, one of the posh papers then.” I smiled.

“What about insurance?” Ah, well, actually, I’ve recently moved and need some contents insurance. He swung round to his computer, clicking into the quotation system. “Right, well, how many bedrooms does the property have?” None. “Eh, none?” It’s a former art gallery, just one big room. He typed “0” into the “bedrooms” field, looked at it, looked at me, looked back at the screen. “I don’t think I can do that,” and he changed the figure to 1. So, computer said no, but I let him run through a no-use-to-me quotation.

“What about an Isa, then? I see you’ve opened a savings account with some money recently.” (I’d parked the inheritance in a Lloyds instant access eSavings account paying 2.5% — the top internet savings rate for the time being). I — breathing a sigh of relief that he wasn’t attempting to sell a complex structured product tied to the stock market to someone wanting nothing more than an open-door home for cash savings (in that case I’d have to reveal my true identity, launch into a tirade about flogging high-risk products to low-risk savers and threaten to splash his face, plus lime and lilac shirt-and-tie combo, all over the press) — explained that I had an Isa and had already used my allowance.

As it turned out, I could transfer holdings worth £9,000-plus into a Lloyds cash Isa paying a fixed 3% for a year — double the rate on my Egg Isa. Where do I sign?

I returned the following day with a statement of account — yes, one printed off the internet would be fine — and my National Insurance number.

Waiting to be called into the cubbyhole, I overheard a teller: “If the stock market goes up you make money, and it doesn’t have to go up by much. . . capital protected. . . you can’t really lose. . .” There you go. Lloyds tries to sell Mr McTavish from the farmhouse up the road a complex structured product.

Isa transfer paperwork complete, I scarpered, satisfied that my exercise in curiosity had borne some fruit.

Jennifer Hill is deputy editor of the Money section

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