Hello, am glad I found this thread in the archives with some good tips. At the speed that things in China are changing I'm posting this in case things might be different now.

I'm moving to Shanghai and am trying to decide which bank(s) to set up an account with. I need:

- a deposit account for employer to pay my salary in CNY
- a UnionPay debit/credit card, ideally with an attractive reward scheme
- the ability to convert and transfer CNY into SGD to a bank in Singapore

Can relationships with foreign banks (like HSBC/Citi/StanChart) started overseas be extended into China, so I might benefit from lower forex conversion and transfer fees? Have heard UOB and DBS (Singapore banks) have upped their game in China in recent years.

If not, then they're not particularly appealing, and I think I'll forgo the foreign account and stick to ICBC or Merchants Bank.

Thanks in advance.

If you have/ qualify for HSBC premier, I believe that can extend to an account in China (I don't know from personal experience, since don't qualify!).

Unless you are a Chinese national, getting a CC is not easy, and not worth the hassle imo. All accounts will get a debit card, which won't have a rewards option. Your employer should be able to transfer money to most banks, but e.g. mine (a university) strongly encourages all employees to open an account in one of two (Chinese) banks for the purpose. Not sure what would have happened if I had decided against doing so!

All banks can transfer money overseas, but actually doing so is not that easy or straightforward, I tend to take cash with me when travelling. Of course, if you are getting paid serious amounts, that's probably not practical. Do note that the amount of your pay that you can convert to foreign currency is written into your contract, and is typically 50-80% of your salary.

tb

I have an HSBC Premier account. HSBC operates its banks separately per country, but under the Premier banner, they can be linked. One of the great things about this account is the ability to do fee-free international wire transfers. And no ATM fees at HSBC ATM's anywhere and reimbursement of fees levied by other banks' ATMs (at least using the USA HSBC card). But Premier takes a chunk of cash to pony up unless you can get one set up under a special deal with an employer. And HSBC for regular accounts is a very high-cost bank so wouldn't be an ordinary choice. Merchants Bank would be my first choice for a local bank and if you are only doing sporadic wires into the account, the fees might be manageable.

One thing about conversion of RMB to forex and sending it out to SIN through the banking system (whether Chinese or foreign nameplate): you will need to provide certain paperwork to prove the money was legitimately earned and that Chinese income tax was paid on it. Your employer should be able to provide the correct stubs and printouts to do this. And of course your passport with residence permit. As to limitations on conversion, I think with corporate/commercial employment you can convert and send 80-100% of your aftertax income out. Verify this with your employer and your employment contract.

Merchant Bank is very popular among foreigners and my richer Chinese friends. They are more "business oriented" than other banks. HSBC is a separate entity in China AFAIK. Their fees are quite high.

I am also HSBC Premier, but for China CMB is my first choice. Get the golden card by keeping a balance of 50000 RMB. The only setback with CMB is that the English online banking is absolute crap. The Chinese version works like a charm but you need to be able to read.

Very competitive rates for overseas ATM withdrawals (official Unionpay rate plus 0.5% charge, min. 10 RMB).

My current take on the banking topic is to, first and foremost, get an account at the same bank (bonus points for same branch) as the entity that pays you the most often. This helps preempt a myriad of "vanishing wire" scenarios (e.g. I've seen rejections for reasons as silly as an extra space in the account name).

If this bank happens to be one that you like, great. If not, consider opening a second account at a friendly bank ("friendly" criteria: short lines, minimal red tape, well stocked ATMs, slick online banking, etc). Huaxia and CITIC are my friendly banks, but I also have accounts at each of the big 4 plus HSBC (not premier though).

Unlike most of you, I almost never take CNY out of China so outbound transfers aren't an important consideration for me.

The nice thing about CMB (if you have the golden Sunflower card that requires a 50,000 RMB balance) is that transfers to other banks in China are free of charge, ATM withdrawals all over China free of charge.

Thanks for the responses! I did some digging around on HSBC Premier and Citigold, and found out that I can enjoy free transfers with Citibank just as a normal account holder.

It's a service called Citibank Global Transfers.

Kinda begs the question what the point of being a Citigold member is then.. Perhaps preferential forex rates?

Some other forumers have criticized HSBC Premier/Citigold as easy ways to lock customers into buying their investment products. Am not sure if that's a fair comment.

Sunflower card at CMB sounds good too. Will try it out. :)

The ability (and cost) of transferring money is not the limiting factor (for me). It's the paperwork. Some, especially expat-heavy institutions have this worked out easily. Some places (my employer) are fairly clueless, and the hassle is greater than taking chunks of cash out whenever I travel.

tb

I don't see such a clause in my contract so it's probably not everyone.

However, if your salary is in the contract (which I think would be) and you've had a raise then yes there might be problems if you tried to change a whole year's worth of pay without supplementary documentation (e.g., a note from HR with the company stamp).

The banks have always asked me to provide actual tax receipts and they chop it afterwards to indicate how much has been used up. However, these days the tax receipts are just print-outs which you can get at any time from the tax bureau so I don't know why they still bother with the chops :D

For overseas withdrawals my favourite is still CIB, where if you qualify for platinum and above (Y150000+) then all withdrawals anywhere in the world are free.

However, these days I would be cautious about putting too much cash in any one of these listed non-state banks (e.g., CIB or Merchant, as opposed to a big state bank like ICBC) as word is when the banking reforms finally happen the state may make an example of one of them by letting them go bust. If a bank like ICBC got into trouble they'd be printing cash without batting an eyelid.

There wouldn't be any paperwork or limits if you used a fee-free ATM card and just withdrew cash overseas. It just takes perseverance :)

I do that also: I have a Huaxia bank account just for this purpose: one withdrawal a day FOC. But that means I can only convert a fairly limited amount on a short trip. Compare with taking $3k, e.g. and getting it done in one fell swoop.

tb

You can get the same bank to issue more debit cards to you by going to a different branch in the same city (or even different cities if you run out of branches). Of course you could also go to a different bank that offers a fee-free withdrawal card.

As far as I know the withdrawal limits are still per-card rather than per-passport (which you could get around if you had multiple passports).

Which banks offer fee-free withdrawals that don't have a deposit (of large sums) requirement?

I feel a bit uncomfortable having multiple accounts at the same bank, but thank you for the suggestion.

tb

I think this has been the best thread of banking in China for foreigners.

My son (US citizen) is going to college in Shanghai. The school can set up local bank accounts for students. It is just daily expenses, no tuition and dorm costs since they will be paid at US side. It is about $500 to $1,000 per month and I'll need to send to him to spend at Shanghai.

We/he has bank accounts at BofA and Chase. BofA + CCB can be a good combo. I can also open a new Citi account to use Global Transfer to the China account. I researched the HSBC Premier, but I can't fork out $100,000 fund just for this purpose. We do not want to pay the fees to send or wire the $$ to bank in China. Also, want to cut ATM fees to the minimum. Care less about CC rewards etc. We also have relatives who can lend my son the ATM card etc. Even have relative working at BoC.

I enjoy the online banking in US and wish to keep it and keep the costs to the very minimum. A US or global bank solutions is preferred. Any other good solutions?

Dealing with banks in China is rarely pleasant or easy.

I'd strongly suggest you find a bank or credit union in the US that doesn't charge fees on overseas withdrawals, beyond passing on the ATM network charges.

Sending money by ATM is so simple and convenient. Rarely a problem unless you lose your card, so have a backup account as well.

HSBC solution would have been ideal. But not with the high balance. If no other good solution, I may go with the BofA + CCB route. Then we can use BofA (US) ATM card at CCB ATM. We can then deposit the unused RMB at local Chinese bank (CCB or another).

For WeChat and alipay，only Chinese banks, and not all, work.

So?

We're talking here about how his parents can most easily fund him from the U.S. Of course he can also open a Chinese bank account and try to get Alipay and Wechat working, funding the Chinese account with ATM withdrawals from the U.S. account.

Okay. In that case, fee free ATM withdrawals would be my personal primary objective.

AliPay and Wechat Pay won't be any problem. The school will set up the local bank account since the students are entitled for it. The college has the full local support.

The issue is to get the fund into the Chinese local bank. I do not want to wire it and pay the wiring fees. The options are BofA + CCB ATMs or other bank's ATMs. I assume the cash will be RMB, not US $.

I do not know if Citi is another solution. The good thing is that this is Shanghai and it has the most banks in China.

ATMs in China usually work on most international networks, so there's no reason to stick with one Chinese bank for international withdrawals, unless it affects your U.S. bank fee. (Chinese banks don't add a fee for international withdrawals from their ATMs, yet.)

One point in Citibank's favor is that I've always found their ATMs very reliable, though they haven't got that many ATMs in China.

Schwab is perhaps unrivalled when it comes to pulling out money from ATMs worldwide because you can use any machine that accepts your card without worrying at all about fees. Most credit unions are also pretty good. The BOFA/CCB drill is kind of annoying because it forces you to be on the lookout for CCB ATMs or else pay obscene fees.

Avoiding ATM fees is one of the main concerns. Along with any wiring fees.

This is something worth looking into.

Another nice feature about Schwab is the $1000 per day daily withdrawal limit that can be raised (as high as you want it (though I've always been loath to go too high) for 24 hour periods with a quick phone call. While this might seem like a trivial matter, ICBC and CMB CDMs are surprisingly inconveniently located in Beijing and Shanghai, so I try to keep my visits to a minimum.

ETA: "Surprisingly" was poor word choice because CDMs do suck up a lot more real estate than plain vanilla ATMs.

So you can use any ATM with Visa logo in China to get RMB out? Then the US $ is taken out from your Schwab checking, no ATM fees both sides and no foreign transaction fees?

My BofA account has no ATM fees and gives unlimited ATM fee refunds from other bank. But it is only is US, not worldwide.

"So you can use any ATM with Visa logo in China to get RMB out? Then the US $ is taken out from your Schwab checking, no ATM fees both sides and no foreign transaction fees?"

Yes, no added fees by the banks on either side, though there is a Visa network charge built into the exchange rate. Also, if you're in a country like Thailand where the local banks do add an ATM fee, Schwab will refund it.

Note some cautions with Schwab:

-- They are first and foremost a broker, and offer checking accounts as an adjunct to their brokerage business. If you just want to open a small checking account to take advantage of their no-fee ATM cards, they may not be eager to serve you. They expect to make money from you as a brokerage customer. And if you do a Google search, you'll see some complaints indicating Schwab does from time to time close accounts when their activity doesn't meet Schwab's business model.

-- Given that the securities business is highly regulated, as a broker they seem very sensitive to accounts with a lot of non-U.S. activity. Using a VPN when checking your Schwab account and not using foreign ATMs too frequently would be a cautious approach. Or you can open a Schwab international account in Hong Kong.

Withdrawal (CNY) ¥ 2,000.00Withdrawal (USD) $ 308.08Effective FX6.49182031Bloomberg FX6.5052Differential0.98662031

This is a pretty low limit.

For ATM, $1,000 is decent limit. Schwab is not the traditional bank like Citi, Chase and BofA that you can walk into a branch and take out $10,000 in cash.

Since the annual limit for inbound USD is 50k, I felt 10k was a sensible stopgap.

@889 Thank you for indirectly getting me to crunch the Schwab numbers. Do you know of any banks that can undercut their 100 basis points by a significant margin?

I was very surprised at your calculation: I thought Visa incorporated a network fee of about 0.75 percent of the wholesale rate.

What is amazing is how difficult it is to determine just what Visa does charge.

Actually, not so amazing.

This is what Visa charges: https://usa.visa.com/support/consume...lculator.html/
Your bank may add to this, usually 2-3%
Chinese banks have no ATM fees so the Schwab deal is not so special.

Let's see, then. Based on the Visa rate posted for yesterday, June 24, and today's Bank of China rates, US$100 will get you the following:

649.84 RMB (ATM/Visa)
651.97 RMB (TT/BOC)
646.67 RMB (Cash/BOC)

That is, the Visa rate is about 0.33 percent worse than the TT rate, and about 0.49 percent better than the cash rate. (Of course the posted TT rate doesn't include bank charges that usually accompany TTs.)

@JPDM: Schwab is willing to clear your entire $50k annual allotment in a single day....but, do you really want this?
@889: I appreciate your suggestions of accounts that charge less than 100 basis points for the transfer

One thing I'm thinking is that, even some ATMs do not charge the ATM fees, but there can be some bid differences on the exchange rates each bank uses. Anything we should know? I see some discussion above, but I'd like to know of some summary. On what to look out for.

I believe it's normally the network that sets the rate. However, if you use a Citibank ATM to withdraw from a Citibank account in another country, Citibank seems to set its own rate. Sometimes not so good: it seems haphazard, even within the same country.

Banks don't set the exchange rate. It is set by the "clearing house" such as Visa. Then the bank adds a markup, 0 to 3%.

Opened Schwab investment and bank accounts. Just another tool handy.