Originally Posted by
moondog
A few more points:
1. Wx and alipay are still musts now. I agree that it makes sense for union pay to attempt to grab some the gravy, I can't envision them making a sizable dent in the near future
2. CMB and Huaxia both have awesome customer service, which is useful if you frequently receive FX wires, but if you don't, your pain is likely limited to the initial sign up visit only
3. Most of my income is in the form of USD via Schwab. As such, I have a strong preference for banks with CDM machines that are close to my house or office (so I can withdraw from Schwab and deposit to my Chinese bank in less than 2 minutes)
Is it my imagination, or has the credit card acceptance issue become worse as Alipay and Weixin Pay have gotten more popular? I've had 5-6 merchants this time tell me that either they don't take credit cards, or that have tried to run my cards and their POS terminals failed to process them. But on this trip, I've so far spent all of my time in 2nd and 3rd tier cities while on previous trips I was in 1st tier cities only. In any case, I am tired of watching how easy it is for my wife to pay via Weixin while all of my cards get rejected. Since she can translate, I'm hoping there won't be any issues opening an account.