Originally Posted by
moondog
This thread is now relevant to me because I'm being paid in USD (physical greenbacks) at present, but I charge most of my expenses to US based credit cards.
I visited Citi, HSBC, and Heng Seng today to inquire about USD accounts that permitted online payments to foreign entities. Much to my surprise, I learned: 1) online payments can't go overseas; 2) the minimum balances are really large... $10k for the worst Citi account and $100k for the entry level Heng Seng account.
Based on this lesson, I'm inclined to adhere to the following strategy:
1) stick with my Schwab credit card whenever possible
2) pay it off with Western Union monthly ($10 surcharge)
3) get as much money as possible into my BofA account because of the Construction Bank relationship
4) open a USD/RMB account at one of the Chinese banks (haven't picked one yet)
I presume you mean being paid in China with physical greenbacks. Yes, one of the peculiarities of China that a lot of readers may not understand for foreign currency is the separation of a "notes" account (physical currency can get deposited and withdrawn from this) and an "exchange" account (which may also go by other terminologies). The exchange account is intended for sending money in and out by electronic/wire means--foreign currency. You can't wire outbound from the notes account though, but you can cash and withdraw currency from the exchange account. You can't deposit physical notes into the exchange account. Confused yet? All this is part of the PRC's grand currency control scheme.
Without some paperwork, contract, tax record data and other mafan, there's not a lot you can do through the official banking system when taking in cash USD and sending it out of China in wire form--especially not in do-it-yourself and cheap online. I don't think you're going to find this any different at the Chinese banks. There's always the old tried-and-true Hong Kong Suitcase Strategy, cart your USD wad down in a suitcase, open an account there, deposit and wire back to US. But this gets unwieldy if you need to make a special trip down there more than once every 3-4 months or if the amounts are not large enough to justify the trip. Or the Friends Network--if you have a trusted US friend with US bank accounts, give him hard cash and you get a check or wire or ACH (US bank to US bank) from his account to yours in the USA.
You also might consider getting on the Cash bandwagon--convert part of the USD to RMB and pay for all expenses with that, even buying air tickets back to USA with RMB, hotel bills, restaurant, everything. Less charged on the credit card keeps the amount of USD needed for repayment down. Over the years, I've almost never used my US credit cards for anything in the PRC and just used the cash payment strategy.