It seemed simple enough. My lunchtime quest was to wander across Castle Park into the heart of Bristol's old-established banking quarter in and around Corn Street.

There, I would queue at the foreign travel desk of NatWest's principal banking hall for some Australian dollars. This was no major bit of money movement, nothing to shake the exchange markets or make the Footsie or Dow Jones dip even further. No, it was merely to swap some of our under-fire sterling for what passes as legitimate currency Down Under. This is because I needed to package up a "wedding wad" for someone very special to us – a soon-to-wed daughter of our best friend. The mother of the bride was going to hand over the dosh ahead of the ceremony somewhere idyllic in the Outback.

I'd acquired money at the grand banking emporium, in which Nat West resides, many times down the years, but this time when I popped along, I realised the foreign exchange counter no longer existed.

"Where," I asked," can I get some Australian dollars?"

The girl behind what had once been this section of the bank's business counter told me to see one of the cashiers who would sort me out.

If only.

No, sorry, they didn't have any Australian dollars to hand. I would have to order it.

Really? Was this one of the world's most unusual currencies, then?

I think not.

Slightly cheesed off that such a huge bank's grandiose main seat of business in Bristol failed on this point, I was even more astonished to then be told by bank staff that the best place to go was the post office up along the road in the Mall Galleries. I'd used my local post office before for euros, but still could not believe a major bank was unable to supply. So I tried Lloyds TSB across the way in Corn Street. No, they could only order it, too.

So off I trudged to the Galleries Post Office where they have a system akin to one of those supermarket delicatessen counters. You select the counter service you want and press a button for a relevant ticket. I had number 646 for the travel money desk, and the screen over that particular section said it was currently dealing with number 515. Visions loomed of having to hang around for hours waiting to be seen.

But, actually, the allocated numbers seemed an irrelevance as mine came flashing up on the overhead display board after just a few minutes.

"Do you keep Australian dollars?" I asked the lady at the counter.

They did.

Could I have some?

I could.

Well, actually, it wasn't that straightforward. As I wanted to use my bank debit card for payment, I would need to show them my driving licence or passport to take the transaction any further. I didn't have them to hand. Why would you?

Well, said the lady, you could just pop round the corner into Union Street and get the money out of our hole-in-the-wall machine there. This, I duly did, and returned to be "fast-tracked" for my Aussie cash, with no questions asked and no identity or personal details revealed.

Now, a couple of things occurred to me during this nonsensical financial transaction. Firstly, what would me having a driving licence or passport prove when using my debit card? It could still have been totally dodgy.

Secondly, I could have taken a dodgy debit card and obtained money from the hole in the wall, and then returned with the illegally obtained cash in hand and still got my Oz currency.

What, I pondered, makes buying currency with cash in hand and no other recognised means of identification "clean", and buying it with a debit card you use every day without question "dirty?" No other stores require proof of identity when you buy products with it. I can only imagine it's further freakish Government control aimed at squashing money laundering, so next time, take a rolled up wad of used fivers and no one will query it.

Secondly, I found it astonishing that two major banks, cannot muster any Australian dollars to hand at their principal Bristol banking halls. I'm a long-standing customer of one of them and reckon the fact they were upstaged by the Post Office is nothing short of pathetic.