G'day everyone

I'm abroad and I need to give someone power of attorney on my bank account to do a few needed operations. I trust the person enough to give them complete control over my accounts and all my bank business (except I don't want to give them power to sign surity on my behalf), but I prefer to limit the authority to just what is necessary.

My problem is that although the bank has indicated that they will accept a power of attorney, they refuse to tell us what the wording on the power of attorney should be. It would appear they they're hoping to get a general power of attorney out of me, instead of a specific one. And I'm not inclined to do that.

Now my choice is between granting power of attorney for any bank account at any bank, or only for the specific accounts that I already have. I favour this last approach, but that means that I would have to make a list of things that the agent is allowed to do on my behalf, right? So here's my current list... let me know what you think and if you think anything should be added or removed:

The authorised person may: update the contact details, including e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and physical and postal addresses; change the branch at which the account is held; deposit and withdraw funds; apply for and receive bank statements and archived bank statements; apply for the issue or reissue of any cards (including debit and credit cards), receive such cards and sign for it, change the PIN codes of such cards, and cancel or stop any cards; apply for and update any limits, including withdraw limits, deposit limits, transfer limits, ATM limits, daily limits, internet banking limits, and other limits; apply for, create, update, stop or cancel debit orders and stop orders, and request and receive information about debit orders and stop orders; and generally do anything else related to the accounts.

I'm not sure what should go in there... basically what I want the person to be able to do (a) is to arrange for internet banking for me, and to set limits on the internet banking, and (b) to receive my new credit card, and to set the PIN on the credit card (after which he'll courier it to me). But I don't want to leave out something from the power of attorney that may be necessary for the agent to do these two things. Tricky...

A related issue (but not one that I ask advice for) is that the bank seems to think that the South African embassies in various countries act as commissioners of oaths to sign such things as powers of attorney... but the embassy here in The Hague told me quite specifically that they don't do that. So I'll get the darn signed by a notary (R500-R1000 fee) and hope that the bank accepts it.

So, what are your thoughts about what the bank would likely want the power of attorney to state, and what it should look like?

Thanks
Samuel