There I was, in the center (sorry, centre) of all things financially evil and I needed some cash. I am, of course, referring to Las Vegas, not the City of London. At least in Las Vegas, you have a pretty good expectation that you will come out poorer. In the City, they promise to look after your money, and then just take it anyway.

So I wandered up to an ATM machine, of which there were dozens across the gambling hall of the Venetian Hotel, home to last week’s most excellent Microsoft Mix09 conference.

I dropped in my debit card, and was relieved to see it understood all about chip and pin. Four digits later, and I had the option to check the balance of my current account. Clickety click, and out popped a paper receipt with the information printed on it.

Nothing unusual there, I am sure you would agree.

Except for one small problem. I knew roughly what was in the account, and was surprised to see it expressed as dollars. My interest piqued, I returned to my room and fired up the laptop. Armed with the Barclays chip’n'pin thing, I logged in. Yes, there was the correct amount, numerically exactly the same as the figure I had just received from the ATM. But it was correctly expressed in Sterling.

Now you can say I am being a little bit fussy, but if I have, for example, a thousand pounds in a UK bank account, I expect that the ATM will tell me I have £1000. Or $1452 at today’s rate. Or something close, based on the currency conversion rates, plus or minus a bit. I do not expect to see it shown as $1000.

Surely the banking computer system is not this screwed up?