moondog

Today, I went to ICBC to issue a new atm card (I reported it lost about two weeks ago, but they told me that there is now a seven day waiting period...not sure why).

I'd been putting off step two because I expected it to be unpleasant. Well, it turns out this expectation was well justified.

All was going smoothly until we got to the verification questions. E.g your address at the time you opened the account? Your employer's tax id and bank registration? Address of branch that opened the account?

I explained to the manager that I had no clue about my former address. He said he didn't believe me, and that I should go to some main branch, and request a record search (bear in mind that he had the answer right in front of him).

After an hour of back and forth, I finally walked out of there with a new card. FYI I was happily willing to surrender the 200 or so in my account and simply open a new one but this was a non starter because he wanted a few documents that I don't tote around every day.

I'm not sure if this ordeal is an ICBC thing or just limited to the branch I visited, but I'm quite glad that in person bank visits are pretty much a thing of the past.

889

I had a similar problem when the bank wanted to see the passport I'd used to open the account years before. I was prepared with a photo of it on my phone, but no, they wanted to see the original. Even though I'd previously updated to the new passport on their records.

"All was going smoothly until we got to the verification questions."

This is why you need to hold onto all those slips of paper you get from the bank on each visit.

As to the new card, I thought with most banks if you want to keep your account number, printed on the card, then you have to wait a week or two while it's custom made. If you're happy with a new card/account number, they can do it on the spot.

moondog

I thought so too because that has been my experience in the past, but I just went with the flow. In any event, I put the card in my desk drawer, and plan on keeping it there indefinitely (i.e. use Alipay/Wechat for all purchases, and make cardless deposits at ATMs when needed).

moondog

I wasn't sure which thread to post this in (or perhaps start a new thread) because it pertains to both banking and Wechat, but I'm rolling with this one because it's related to my ICBC lost card ordeal.

After I got my new debit card (see above), my next order to business was to reconnect with Alipay and Wechat pay. Getting Alipay back online was honestly quite painless (i.e. almost automatic). Wechat, on the other hand, was incredibly annoying.

Basically, when I tried to add my new card, the system told me that my ID (passport) number was wrong --this is semi true because I orginally registered using my previous passport-- but, they provided NO function to update it. So, I went to Google, and learned that others have also experienced the same issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comme...allet_problem/

To resolve it, I needed to completely drain my Wechat balance, and change my name. While this might seem crazy, this is honestly the only way to pull it off.

Switching topics, after I was reset to zero, I had to go through the name change thing. I tried many different combinations of my name, and all were rejected. But, then I figured why not make an attempt with ALL CAPS, and it worked!

The format for most banks is LAST FIRST MIDDLE, though one of the guys on our FT Wechat group advises BOC uses FIRST MIDDLE LAST.

I think it would be cool if we could put all of this info into a table that we build over time:
-bank name
-can foreigners register without RP?
-Alipay using passport number
-Wechat using passport number
-name syntax
-customer service on a scale of 1 to 10 (this might not be necessary because our goal is to avoid contact with banks after getting accounts, which only requires an hour of pain)

889

I assume you had to go through all this trouble because you got a new card with a new number.

I too learned the hard way that it is much much better to keep the old number and wait a couple of weeks while they make the replacement card.

As to how your name should be typed, just look at the slips of paper you got from the bank, the ones I keep harping on.

moondog

I was not offered this option.

I will keep those slips from now on. I actually had the right syntax, but didn't recall that ALL CAPS mattered (it does for ICBC).

889

"I was not offered this option."

I'd strongly suggest anyone in that situation in the future ask then ask again about keeping the same number. A new number basically means all the rigamarole of opening a new account and closing the old one: an hour of your life sitting at the bank counter. Then if you're filing FBAR etc you have to reflect all that on next year's form. And getting balances for the old account may be difficult since it might have disappeared from the system.

moondog

I wish I had asked you about this a month ago, but the potential issues of getting a new account number simply didn't register. Anyway, lesson learned, and hopefully your advice will spare others from making the same mistake.

Akiestar

I received a notification from WeChat yesterday saying that I need to pass identity verification, otherwise my WeChat Pay will be disabled.



It looks like they're really clamping down now on people using workarounds to use WeChat Pay, and which is why now I feel more strongly than ever that having a bank account in China will prevent these issues from coming up, although at least I can provide my own personal information to them. But having a bank account is much more convenient.

moondog

I had to do the same drill yesterday (in order to zero out my balance so I could update my passport number). And, I know five other people who have also been targeted. This verification was honestly pretty easy. In fact, since I did not have my passport with me, I used my florida DL as the ID, and it worked. That having been said, my account remained locked for a solid four hours.

I expect that we're going to see more of this stuff going forward. For this reason, I think it's increasingly important to have both Wechat and Alipay. If one goes offline, you need a backup.

Akiestar

I agree, but since I can't use either without tying a Chinese bank account to them (Alipay more so, since I don't think you can send red packets like WeChat), how does that help people like me?

moondog

In both cases, you can ask others to juice your accounts, but this is obviously a sub optimal solution.

The key piece to the puzzle is getting a bank account that: 1. will give you an account, and 2. is compatible with wx and Alipay (without 身份证)

2 seems to less of a problem these days, at least with larger banks. On the flip side fewer and fewer banks seem willing to open accounts for foreigners who don't have RPs.

This why I floated the idea of making a table (Google Sheets, perhaps) that we put in a wiki post. Basically, I'm guessing that there are some diamonds in the rough, and knowing about them would be useful for many people.

moondog

I just created a wiki post, consisting of a Google Sheet URL only. At present, it only consists of my single current data point (ICBC), so there is no point in posting an image, but I encourage all of you guys to add data about your own banks. It's very rare to find info that doesn't exist on the internet these days, but this is one such case.

Akiestar

Bumping this discussion since something happened: my aunt (based in LA) upgraded to Premier so I'm now latched on to her account. She should be able to meet the minimum balance requirement shortly, and once she does, I should get the ball rolling on opening that Premier account in China.

I'm more than happy to be a data point on this if that's still required.

Deltus

I have an HSBC Premier account in China, and haven't managed to get it working with WeChat or AliPay yet. However, I'm not yet living in China, and don't have a Chinese mobile number, so haven't tried too hard... If you do get it working, then do let me know!