[jmillikin]

Meeting with a banker face-to-face can often work better if your situation is in any way unusual or complicated. The definition of "unusual" might not be what the reader would expect.

For example, the process to open a new account at SMBC (one of the three largest banks in Japan) can be done entirely online, unless the customer has a middle name. Why? Probably some ancient COBOL program that can only be bypassed by hand-verifying the customer's info.