Advice on opening a Chinese bank account?

[RobertBfrom aust]

Hi David , yes it is a debit card which I attached to a interest bearing Cheque account , which I have and do not use for my business , I just tell her how much to draw down approx due to rough conversion and a couple of times when I guessed wrong by a dollar or two my bank has now got the authority to balance out from the linked account , regards Ying and Robert .

[David E]

Hi David , yes it is a debit card which I attached to a interest bearing Cheque account , which I have and do not use for my business , I just tell her how much to draw down approx due to rough conversion and a couple of times when I guessed wrong by a dollar or two my bank has now got the authority to balance out from the linked account , regards Ying and Robert .

Thank you for that info. Ying and Robert....problem Solvered :icon_cheesygrin::icon_cheesygrin:...I will attach the debit card to one of my Business Transaction Accounts...perfect !!!

David

[Peter]

Anyone more than Maxx that have experience of transferring money to a Chinese account ??
The story is like this:
My wife have open a account for our apartment in Bank of China in Changsha. On my Internet bank I made a transfer to our account 2 weeks ago. It was quite a large sum of money... I was talking to my wife at the same time so she knew that the money was on it's way.. 3 days later she tried to get some money but there was no money on the account... 2 days later, 5 days after sending money, she tried again but with the same result.
I contacted my bank and they started to trace the money. The money had appeared in Bank of China in Changsha after 3 days... I also got the transferring code and told my wife to go to the bank and ask for the transaction.. She did....
Bank of China in Changsha told her that there was no money.. or should I say that the Bank in Changsha had sent the money to Bank of China in Beijing.... Why No one could tell us why.. The money have been in Changsha but was now in Beijing... My wife was told that it would take 30 days to get the money back to Changsha and into our account.. So now we are waiting for the money to appear in Changsha again..
This could be an expensive lesson if the money disappear again between Beijing and our account... Anyone had a similar experience

Peter

[Irishman]

Thanks Peter, I just stopped thinking about a Bank Of China Account, thats ridiculous.
I think HSBC might be the way forward as they are used to dealing with the west?

[David5o]

Irishman,

You would think so wouldn't you, but i have an HSBC account, and a very similar thing to Peter has happened to me with that account. We now only use that account as a sort of emergencey slush fund ..haha!!

Peter,

Occasionally you do have problems such as you have experienced, and sometimes it's because we have forgotten something like a sort code, or branch code when transferring the money. Now if you are sure everything was done correctly, contact the head office of that bank and tell them that you expect the interest incurred during the time that these funds have been unavailable to you and in there care to be deposited in your account along with the initial sum. I can assure you it won't take 30 days to transfer that money back into your own account in Changsha!!!

We both have BOC accounts, and rarely do we have any problems with them, in fact in my experience, they are generally better than the HBSC in China, they certainly carry more weight over there. HSBC are the king in Hong Kong with branches on almost every street.

The thing to remember when dealing with banks, is to find the angle where it's them that is going to pay you when they don't get it right. This is a perfect example where you can make them pay for there blunder. Where you are perfectly within your rights to ask for interest to be paid to you, Yes! even in China!!!  They are making interest on that money while in there care, so you are quite within your rights to ask for that interest to be repaid back to yourself.


David....

[Chong]

I did a bank telegraphic transfer [ bank service charge was $ 78 Cdn ] from my Toronto BofC to Sunny's Kaiping BofC in late October of $ 61,000 Cdn funds for our apartment purchase and interior construction. Her bank held back $ 7,000 Cdn for two months. While it was in her account, she couldn't use it. They said it was pass her limit of an one time withdrawal.

[ttwjr32]

living here in china i use bank of china and have never had a problem
 with them in person. i have never tranfered money like you guys. but i
 did notice something yesterday? on my bank card it says  "valid only in china"
 so i will have to check on that because when i go back to usa for a visit it
 would be terrible to have no money. all my relatives would have to pay for
 everything for me     wait a minute that doesnt sound like a bad idea  haha

[Buzz]

I opened a Bank of China account in Anshan, where my lady lives.  Got the Union Pay card, and it does not say 'only in china'.  Had some extra RMB and so my last day in Beijing went to the bank of china and tried to deposit the money in my account.  Was told that my account was in Anshan and that they could not deposit the money.  They could however deposit the money to my union pay card.  The card is good anywhere, but deposits to the account must be in Anshan.  Also if you notice that the union pay card has a different number from the bank account.  So my advice is to deposit money to the union pay card and forget the accout.  That way the money can be added to the card no matter which city.  Also it is easy to check the balance on the card at any 24 hour banking location.  I have a teller here at my local bank whose father married a lady from Beijing last year.  So my bank has done these transfers before.  Will do small deposits over the months and then have the lady check the balance.  Best thing about this is that the exchange rate is that between banks, not bank to customers.  hope this helps.    buzz

[David5o]

Chong,

Check your wife's account contract, if there is a mentioned withdrawal limit fine. Although i  can't see where they get this two months hold her account funds. (Normally if and when there is a withdrawal limit, it would be for weekly or a monthly!!!)  If there isn't then the same thing applies to your wife as Peter, demand there interest rate to be deposited in her account, and get this withdrawal limit nulled from her account.

When i was first in China, i had several little things like this happen to me, but i soon found out how to deal with my bank there, on taking advice from local colleagues etc. I think quite a lot of people are a little wary of dealing with the banks in China, ....don't be!! I've always managed to sort my problems out, and made a few bob (money) out of them in the process too...lol!!!


David....

[RegnisTheGreat]

All CIBC Bank Machines in Canada are able to accept Union Pay..

[Irishman]

I asked Sunny to check out if it was possible and here is what she just wrote to me :-

"Today I have consulted the information about dual account in Bank of China. There is not such kind of service, but in other banks there are. Then I surf online and find that Construction Bank has this kind of service. I have called them and one worker there tells me that we need to provide our valid certificates, such as both the original and copy of my ID card and your passport. And we should go there together. They will give us two cards, with both we can deposit and withdraw money in any country. If we want to open this account, we can only do it when you are in China."

So there you have it

[ttwjr32]

my wife and i have what she calls a couples account
  which works out well for us one account for spending
  and one account for savings

[Paul Todd]

I saw that account in the Construction bank too. It's called the "Jointly Account" but in the small print I found this:-

"Withdraw Money from Jointly Account
There is only one way to withdraw fund from fixed jointly account and must withdraw all fund from the account in one time. There are two ways to withdraw fund from current account: together transaction and authorized transaction."

Does this mean you have to empty your account when you withdraw cash?:huh:
Ted,which bank do you use? Thanks

Paul

[ttwjr32]

we use bank of china and icbu  i think thats the name they
have two banks with similiar initials here in guangzhou so i get confused