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Banking and Good banks in the PRC Discussion

Old May 18, 2019, 4:15 am
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Last edit by: Deltus
As of May 2019, this thread is closing in on its 9 year anniversary. A lot has changed during the course of the past 9 years. In particular: 1. WeChat Wallet and Alipay have risen to prominence, and 2. banking related security measures have become much more intense. #2 is especially relevant to foreigners in China because many --if not most-- banks are reluctant to open accounts for people on standard tourist or business visas.

The objective of this thread is to help people navigate these waters. Please feel free to add your own data points to the Google Sheet in the following link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lBOLufpsS_YypVd4Yv75aDVNLK2K0t8GHtbV7-O9Hqw/edit?usp=sharing

For an account of using HSBC Premier in China, see post 188.
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Banking and Good banks in the PRC Discussion

Old Oct 17, 2010, 1:07 am
  #46  
 
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Originally Posted by tauphi
http://www.safe.gov.cn/model_safe/la...000000,23&id=4

Print it out and take it with you if your bank teller has just come back from Mars.

However, even the teller at my local HSBC branch knew about this so I wonder which bank you've been going to that hasn't received this memo from SAFE?
Thanks. Clearly, I should head over to HSBC this coming week and visit with the managers from Mars.
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Old Oct 17, 2010, 4:13 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by jiejie
Thanks. Clearly, I should head over to HSBC this coming week and visit with the managers from Mars.
One of friends recently advised me that the only way to get love from Citi, HSBC, or Heng Seng in Beijing is to tell them you will be making a 6 figure (USD) deposit in the near future; apparently, they don't bother to follow up when you forget to make the deposit. I will say that the aforementioned backs are considerably less crowded than the Chinese banks. My Heng Seng friend walked me over to ICBC after she told me she didn't want my business and was taken aback by the throng of humans.
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Old Oct 17, 2010, 9:01 am
  #48  
 
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Originally Posted by moondog
One of friends recently advised me that the only way to get love from Citi, HSBC, or Heng Seng in Beijing is to tell them you will be making a 6 figure (USD) deposit in the near future; apparently, they don't bother to follow up when you forget to make the deposit. I will say that the aforementioned backs are considerably less crowded than the Chinese banks. My Heng Seng friend walked me over to ICBC after she told me she didn't want my business and was taken aback by the throng of humans.
I don't think they really care about when and if you make that initial deposit. You just need to worry about whether they forget to collect the $50 dollar a month account keeping fee
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Old Apr 24, 2011, 3:14 am
  #49  
 
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(sorry for the mega-bump)

But I've always been wondering- why does Standard Chartered always seem to have better cash exchange rates than the others?
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Old Apr 26, 2011, 2:04 am
  #50  
 
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Originally Posted by jamar
(sorry for the mega-bump)

But I've always been wondering- why does Standard Chartered always seem to have better cash exchange rates than the others?
What's their rate? I can't find it on their website.
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Old May 29, 2012, 10:17 pm
  #51  
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the banking thread

Whether you live here or are simply visiting, you will need money.

Back in the day, I was a BofA loyalist, due to its relationship with CCB, but I killed that account once it became no longer "free".

Moving on, anybody who's here for the long term requires a Chinese bank account. The problem I've encountered is that Chinese banks either suck or they charge insane fees. Sometimes they do both.

My company uses the Bank of Ningbo (extremely painful to deal with) because they are cheap. But, even for corporate clients like ourselves, we must earmark an hour of our time in order to perform the simplest of transactions.

In Beijing, I am impressed by Huaxia Bank; for some reason, those guys never have any lines... and, their ATMs are very nice. Merchants bank is also good, but I'm sure both charge high fees (based on their lack of customers).

In closing, I increasingly like Schwab. While wires can be a pain, their accounts entail no fees of any sort (i.e. withdrawing money from my Schwab account in Shanghai is cheaper than withdrawing money from my Beijing BankComm account).

http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/...ecking_account
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Old May 30, 2012, 4:31 am
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by moondog
In Beijing, I am impressed by Huaxia Bank; for some reason, those guys never have any lines... and, their ATMs are very nice. Merchants bank is also good, but I'm sure both charge high fees (based on their lack of customers).
For low fees you can't beat the Industrial Bank (www.cib.com.cn).
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Old May 30, 2012, 6:24 am
  #53  
 
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In an effort to avoid fees as much as possible, I now have nine bank accounts here. Most of them I've dropped because others have come up with better offers, though.

1. Standard Chartered. Better US$ cash exchange rate than the others due to waiving the Cash/Wire exchange difference, and because I got a Breeze account while it was still no-minimum-balance I have free domestic transfers and free withdrawals anywhere in China. Plus it works with Alipay/Taobao. Downside is they're getting popular and some branches are almost as crowded as ICBC/CCB/etc.

2. Dah Sing Bank. Free withdrawals anywhere in the world (ATM operator fees notwithstanding). Quick service (there's yet to be a single time I've walked into the branch and had to wait- it's always walk in-get 'er done-walk out). And they didn't charge me to issue an ATM card. But there's only a single branch in Shanghai (at least it's in Xujiahui).

3. Nanyang Commercial Bank. I can use any BoC branch for basic RMB stuff (deposits/withdrawals for free), so that's a plus. Free ATM withdrawals in China (and I can deposit cash at BoC cash deposit machines- no intercity fee if you're outside Shanghai, which is better than BoC does for its own accounts). Downside is you have to walk into one of their own branches to open an account and those are few and far between.


Meanwhile, BoC makes me irate, to put it nicely (they make me produce ID if I do anything with my NCB account involving a teller, and there are a couple of things involving on-campus services that I *absolutely* have to use a BoC account for), ICBC makes me feel neutral at best (seriously, why can't I switch from an RMB-only credit card to an RMB+foreign currency card without reapplying? But on the plus side, it supports PayByTouch) and I keep a BankComm account only for the RFID ATM card that gets me 40% off on the vending machines.

On the US side I just use Schwab.
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Old May 30, 2012, 7:01 am
  #54  
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Originally Posted by jamar
Meanwhile, BoC makes me irate, to put it nicely (they make me produce ID if I do anything with my NCB account involving a teller, and there are a couple of things involving on-campus services that I *absolutely* have to use a BoC account for)
About a month back, I received a wire to my BankCom account, and those guys made me go back to Beijing to collect it... not just to Beijing, but to the branch in Dongzhimen, in which my account is based. And, I still had to wait in line for 30 minutes. They are a really bad bank, and my colleagues continually push me to simply go with ICBC, but I haven't jumped ship yet because: 1) I have Schwab and 2) signing up for bank accounts in China is annoying.
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Old May 30, 2012, 8:53 am
  #55  
 
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OK, I am a total ignoramus on this...and it really irritates me, because I am pretty picky about bank accounts in the US/UK.

In my first week here, I was told to open a bank account on campus, to allow me to be paid. I did so (CCB -- due to BoA relationship, I had one or two others choices), and amazingly, I get paid without ever giving my bank details to payroll: lack of privacy is astonishing sometimes!

I have no idea how to use my bank account. And basically, I just withdraw cash from ATMs -- CCB is v. plentiful round these parts. I seem to get the right amount of money deposited into the bank every month, and if there are fees involved, they don't seem to be exhorbitant. I would love to be able to do online banking, but been warned off that 'it's difficult' if one doesn't read chinese (may well be true).

If I need to make a bank transfer, I usually get a colleague to do it, and I pay them in cash...I hope I'm not causing them to incur fees.

tb
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Old May 30, 2012, 9:18 am
  #56  
 
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My current banking arsenal is as follows:

1. ICBC "VIP Elite" Account
If you can keep more than 200,000RMB in your account, I'm of the firm opinion that this is the best Chinese banking product out there. Almost all of the normal fees are waived (no inane "intercity" banking fees, no foreign ATM fees, no maintenance fees...), you can use a dedicated window at their large branches and queue jump at the smaller ones, and there's almost nothing that can't be done with their online banking site (though the English version of this is utterly useless). They even gave me a proper credit card with respectable limit (150,000) and only minimal hassle.

My primary grievance with ICBC (but this applies to all the Chinese banks) is that their online banking only plays nice with IE on Windows and requires one of those annoying little USB contraptions if you want to do anything more than check your balance. They recently rolled out something of a Mac version, but it's still very wonky and doesn't support the USB dongle (or, at least not my USB dongle).

2. HSBC Premier (in HK, US, and UK)
HSBC has great online banking (even works on Mac ^) and free transfers between HSBC accounts in different countries. They also set me up with an RMB account and linked it with my ICBC account, so I can easily deal with incoming/outgoing wires. Assuming you maintain their minimum total relationship balance, there are basically no fees for anything.

Not sure if you need an HKID to open this account or not; I used one at the time, but it may not be an actual requirement.

Like jamar, I also have a bunch of random accounts I've opened for various specific purposes, but they basically just sit empty. Alipay is also amazingly useful, although getting the account "verified" is incredibly, incredibly annoying for anyone without a 身份证 (i.e. for foreigners) and requires sending in reams of documents.
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Old May 30, 2012, 9:30 am
  #57  
 
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Originally Posted by moondog

Back in the day, I was a BofA loyalist, due to its relationship with CCB, but I killed that account once it became no longer "free".
Are you referring to BofA fees state-side or with the CCB relationship? When I was there last month a CCB withdrawal from my BofA account had no fees attached (although the rate did seem to be marked up ~1%, whereas in the past the markup was essentially zero).
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Old May 30, 2012, 9:52 am
  #58  
 
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I like to keep things simple. I'm down to two:
1) HSBC Premier (the free wiring between the linked accounts in different countries is a godsend, and I've used HSBC ATM's in many other countries fee-free).
2) Merchants Bank for my local. Not a VIP account, but am very satisfied with their service and overall competence. I use primarily for local payments such as utilities and for local ATM. I just visit a branch when I need something, don't deal with online (in which they sadly do not have the best interface for English readers.)

I had BoC when I first arrived in China since banking was different back then and they were the only ones that could deal with individual foreigners needing incoming forex wires and all that in Beijing (banking restrictions in Beijing were not loosened as early as they were in Shanghai and some other cities). I kissed them goodbye back in 2004 or 2005 when they had long outlived their usefulness and I realized I hadn't used the account in a year.

HSBC USA retail banking is going to be going away due to corporate restructuring. I will look into the Schwab thing.
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Old May 30, 2012, 10:43 am
  #59  
 
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Other than HSBC who has decent English internet banking?
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Old May 30, 2012, 10:59 am
  #60  
 
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Originally Posted by Shimon
Other than HSBC who has decent English internet banking?
Standard Chartered. No USB dongle required either and it works on just about any browser (I've tried it on an iPad, Android smartphone, and can successfully log in and check balances/transfer money on all of them).

The only unfortunate thing is that "Breeze 2.0" requires a 100k minimum deposit. I got in back when that was zero and have been warned that I might have to make that minimum by end of '13.
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