travelinmanS

100k of which currency?

jamar

100K RMB. If you have that money, go for it- I've yet to find another bank whose online banking works with anything other than IE. If you don't (like in my case- my bank balances here rarely go over 10k RMB total), they still have a zero-minimum account, but without free inter-bank withdrawals and transfers.

fimo

When I opened my BoC account (chosen because they are right in the next apt building where I live and even open on Saturday), they set me up with a 'VIP' account, which means getting access to online banking in a fully english interface.

Even then, there is a learning curve to figure out the Chinese way of working, but I didn't find it any more challenging than when I moved to Belgium and had to navigate KBC's system.

I only use the most basic functions - ATM/getting money out, paying for things via Unionpay. Luckily for me my major local expenses are directly paid for, so it's just routine daily expenses. Though I get paid ex-China, I arranged for a portion of my COLA to be paid here, and then bring in cold hard RMB cash from Singapore where I am tax-based. I just don't want to deal with wire transfers and such in China. And I figure if I really do need money I'll just use my Citibank or Singapore bank ATMs to access my funds.

tauphi

AFAIK what's going away has already gone, i.e., the upstate NY branches. I'm pretty sure they're keeping the rest, including HSBC Premier, for now.

trueblu

I think I probably need to pay my bank a visit: not set inside the lobby since opening my account! It's possible these things are available to me aswell, but since most of my colleagues are chinese, they never thought to consider english language interface.

tb

KIXman

So far Merchants Bank has been good to me. The staff of the place I visited were very friendly and helped me set up a bank acount with them with almost no paperwork required. Also transactions with them so far have been quick and easy.
I've only started recently so I haven't had much experience with them; the problems I've had so far are the super high currency conversion rate that they charge when I get my overseas salary converted into RMB, and that I have to do the conversion manually each month by visiting the bank. (It's remitted into my account but it stays as yen. I don't know if there's a way to automatically have it converted or if I can do it online.)

jiejie

You need to ask. I know with HSBC China, there is online capability for retail customers to convert forex to RMB, but you have to do an initial in-person setup at a branch and have them activate this online feature. But once you have it, it's great. However, still subject to the US$ equivalent 50K per year without special permission. I would think Merchant's has either online per your manual instruction, or a standing-order auto-conversion by the bank, or both options.

moondog

No. Several years ago, BofA started charging me a monthly fee for some reason. When I asked them about this, they said I simply needed to close my account and open a new --fee free for life-- account on their website, which they were happy to help me do inside the branch.

But, they didn't keep their promise for long... the new account eventually ended up hitting me $15 per month (it's easy to miss stuff like this when you're overseas). I now keep a zero balance in that account, and only turn it back on for people who are challenged by the idea of sending a wire to my Schwab account (I will admit that BofA online banking is idiot proof).

My other gripe about the BofA/CCB tie up is that CCB ATMs near my place in Beijing often run out of money on Sundays and during holiday periods. This even happens at the enormous CCB branch on the first floor of our office building in Shanghai. When using your BofA card at a non CCB ATM, one needs to be prepared to accept a HUGE hit.

On a related note, does anyone have experience using US credit union cards in China? I have an account with one from my college, and have heard that they reimburse ATM fees, but haven't resorted to it in a while because I like Schwab. (I'm somewhat fearful that Schwab will not be great forever... witness what happened to those amazing Schwab credit cards many of us used to have.)

jamar

One of the visiting faculty at my uni had an account at a credit union back in the US and apparently it was hit-and-miss. Definitely nothing extra taken when he used his card at Standard Chartered ATMs, though.

mnredfox

moondog, FAQ already links to here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...banks-prc.html

Do you think we can merge threads?

moondog

Sure; let's do it. I forgot about the other thread... my bad.

drewguy

As bad as BofA is, others in the US (with noted exceptions) are worse. $5+1% is not always more than 3%,which is what another bank I have charges.

jamar

Or $5+3% (I'm looking at you, Wells Fargo). That was horrible.

JDiver

Done, with some mild retitling for searchability. /JDiver, Senior Moderator

xooz

I was reading this thread since my son is going to Beijing University and I was trying to determine what (if any) bank account we might consider opening. One comment and two questions:

COMMENT: Re the question about credit union accounts (US), my son and I have a joint account at the Delta Community Credit Union. He handles virtually all of his spend in Beijing by pulling money out of an ATM. I transfer money from my account to his to give him some buffer. The charges show up and include a 1% foreign transaction fee charged to the account. I never see any ATM fee, but perhaps it is embedded in the cash transaction. I think I looked at that some time ago and it was not far off the OANDA rates. I will review the published rates to the actual withdrawals and see if that is still the case

QUESTION: We have the need to pay his yearly tuition and dorm room each year. Unlike his Korean school, we can't find a way to transfer money directly to the university for payment. So last year and now this year, I brought enough cash with me and flew over with him to make the tuition/dorm payments. So I don't think we really need an account for day to day items but it would be convenient to have a bank account that we could transfer money in from our US acct and just have him pay his "big ticket" items from that account. So... my question is whether there is any PRC bank with locations/ATMs in Beijing that would make sense for this? We are here now to re-up for this year and am considering the possibility of opening an account, since we have to go to a bank to convert the USD anyway. My guess is that fees would eat up any advantage to having the account for this scenario.

QUESTION: For simple conversion of USD cash into RMB cash, is there a web site that is accurate and that I can use to see which bank in Beijing would give me the biggest net return for USD?

Thanks in advance..