Handelsbanken - a boutique, not a casino

The Beeb's love-in with Handelsbanken, a Swedish bank famous for bucking the rip-offs and PR disasters so prevalent in other commercial banking operations. While highlighting Handelsbanken's disdain for casino banking, the article doesn't mention its cherry-picking tendencies. In the wake of the Co-operative Bank scandal, I was looking for an ethical banking alternative that didn't look like it would sell out on its core principles anytime soon and called what I thought was my local Handelsbanken branch. But when asked for my post code, I was then told they couldn't help me because my house wasn't visible from the top of their - imaginary - 'church steeple', and was instead referred to another branch, situated on a rather soulless trading estate, that was within view of my house to an imaginary steeple-climbing bank manager. Just one problem, I wanted free banking, but that only comes at a price with Handelsbanken. Each manager sets their own rules, and, no doubt fresh from his pretend steeplejacking activities, the manager of the local branch had decided 'free banking' only applied to those keeping £85K in their current account. Should such mythical creatures exist, they know which steeple to climb.