China Romance
General Discussion and Useful Links => Useful Links And Articles => Topic started by: Willy The Londoner on June 22, 2012, 09:50:17 pm
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For info for guys sending money to China.
Pay Pal have now opened a China Office. Before this Chinese people had to work through Singapore.
Now with the Chinese office your lady can have money sent to her in US Dollars to her bank in China. I have spoken with them and all she needs is a Bank Account and a Debit card. She can then go to her bank or atm and draw out the money. Simple and easy with only Pay Pals standard charges
There is a restriction on banks and the ones they accept are CBC (China Construction Bank), ICBC Industrial and Commercial Bank, China Merchants Bank. Bank of China is not a bank in the system as yet.
There are branches of CBC everywhere. I can provide anyone with contact so they can talk to an English speaking customer services lady at Pay Pal or your lady can talk with her in Chinese. She will assist them in completing application.
Willy
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Willy,
Have you tried this? When I first arrived in Guangzhou I made arrangements with my US bank to transfer USD to the ABC. Just a few clicks and the money is transferred. Worked perfectly NOT! Because the funds were in USD they were not available at the ATM and they were pretty much buried in some of the sub menus. It took about two weeks to figure out the funds were in my account but not available. After several visits to the banking office I learned you had better get up with the chickens and go stand in front of the bank and get into the queue. That is if you want to see one of the tellers before they leave for lunch in which case you will have to come back after lunch.
All told I think I made about 5 trips to the ATM and 3 trips to the office before I got the USD converted to RMB and available for withdrawal. About 8 weeks of hassle. I never tried it again. I just got another ATM card for my wife and she enjoyed the freedom to just go get whatever she needed at the ATM.
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Pay Pal have only in last couple of weeks opened a facility for Chinese Residents to use Pay Pal via Chinese banks. They are present contacting many people to get them to take up Pay Pal in China.
I have not tried it myself as I have no need to send anyone in China any money. But I would say for small amounts it may be the cheapest way.
I have no idea how you recover the money in rmb.
Maybe if you send me email address by PM then I can put you in contact with Lucy at Pay Pal who may be able to answer your questions.
The Pay Pal system up to this month had to be via Singapore so maybe better now. Note that they only accept people with accounts at certain banks.
Willy
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This is what I have been waiting for. I'll send you a pm.
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do you have a url to their china website.
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You sign up the normal Pal Pay.com site. All sign ups must be in English.
Willy
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first time I sent money to my wife's BoC account, we had trouble. As I use the bank that handles most foreign transactions, this was a little confusing to me. We set it up to transfer in $dollars. The money hit China the next day, but my wife went a while without knowing why she didn't have the money. I spent about a week on the phone with my bank. It finally went over to the "nasty boys department" where they got in contact with BoC directly.
Apparently, with all of the banks in China, if you are not on them like flies on 'stink', they will hold the money (just like any bank, gaining interest for them is gaining money). Until they have what they consider 'proper' authorization.
My bank got on the phone with their main office, got 'nasty' and the money was available to my wife that day. However, if you're bank allows you to send it in RMB, do so. Otherwise, your wife/lady will have to pay a 'conversion fee' for any moneys converted. The larger banks do permit tranfers of money in foreign currency and you will pay a smaller fee than your wife, typically. Why? b/c your bank has your money and they are in the know about your financial matters and are not looking beyond their normal greed. The Chinese banks are still trying to 'grow' with their economy. When the China bubble bursts (their inflated housing market), the banks still standing will adjust to the systems used by other international banks of balancing greed with stability.
Lloyd
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I had a smiler problem when transferring money to my wife's account last year, Took nearly 2 months instead of the usual 3 days, My bank investigated and the answer back from China was that I spelt my wife's name wrong ????, WTF?, I had been sending MinYing money for over a year to the same account with the same direct debit, She finally got the money 1 day before I arrive in China and then they had the cheek to deduct $60 for their troubles ???, Thieving bastards, John.
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When I was in London last I transfered several thousand UK pounds to my wifes B of C account.
When I returned a few days later I had to open a B of C account let the money go into that and then transferred it out of that account into my wifes.
Willy