9754 Bank Accounts...

Hello all,

after struggling on for quite a few months with a 'Poste' account for our business, we have had just about enough of its inadequacies. (We opened the account as it was convenient for us at the time to get an account set up ASAP)

First of all, the 'Poste' account is an online account, but the 'online' services are 'offline' from 22:00 to 08:00 every day, apart from Sunday, when all of the services are closed(!)

We also requested a Postepay card, so we might be able to by as much as a bag of sweets online. (The Maestro card we received is useless in this respect)
We filled in a load of forms (In triplicate) about two months ago, and the card still hasn't arrived...

Aside from this and despite the fact that the account offers domicilio of bills etc. the Poste have no agreement with Telepass (Viacard), and therefore you can't set up a business Telepass system (Which is even more invaluable when your passenger-side window is currently not working!).

Anyway, recently Barclays have grown hugely in Italy in a very short space of time ([url=http://www.barclays.it/]Banca Barclays Italia[/url]). I am perhaps considering to go down the Barclays Business Online Banking route but I have a couple of questions that hopefully someone may be able to enlighten me on:

A) As Barclays have grown from nothing very quickly, are they 'switched on' enough yet to be a bank of choice in Italy?

B) Does anybody know if they have a Viacard agreement for getting a Telepass?

C) Is the Internet Banking account mentioned above always available, or is it closed at weekends etc?(!)

Any comments would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!