I would like to apply for this card now but the online apps still haven't re-opened. Wonder if they have a paper app I can mail in. Otherwise I guess I might be able to visit the Seattle branch one day. If it is a branch, the site is not clear on this...

I was just up that way earlier this week and stayed at the Sheraton next door. It's definitely an office building, so I don't think it's a standard branch. You could try calling to see if they could mail a paper application.

..

Is this geographically restricted or anything?

Edit: applied and approved instantly.

Not to my knowledge. Glad you were approved. $8,000 limit?

Is the link unique for you somehow? If not, maybe it'd be useful to put it in a wiki for this thread?

Won't know till I get it.




EDIT: Whoa! Just noticed BoC USA issues a Visa together with Chase. Wonder if its under 5/24?! Haha. :D
http://www.bankofchina.com/us/en/pbs...6_2733250.html

They told me in the NY branch that they'd prefer I apply in California. The Seattle "branch" is for business loans.

A branch sent me an online link and I applied, but it looks like it got dropped on the ground. I'll probably have to just go into a branch again. Last I went to a branch, I'd opened a bank account with the hope that it would smooth the process. (It didn't)

I had the reverse problem. I couldn't access the account online (never got the signup e-mail), which led me to going into a branch and getting online access via a checking account. Now that the external payments link seems to be active, I don't think I'll keep the checking account open for much longer.

I was using it so I could do an ACH transfer from my primary checking account and then pay the UnionPay card directly. I read a few posts on here where people tried to push payments from their checking accounts and had problems, so an ICBC USA account was a way to prevent any payment glitches.

In case anyone is interested, I popped my ICBC US card into cardpeek. The CVM list is Signature, Online PIN and then No CVM. The rest of the cardpeek results don't mean anything to me, but if anyone wants to know anything else, let me know!

Not that I'm all that surprised, but for a card that's geared towards frequent travelers to China (who would be unlikely to use their cards in the US much if at all) you'd think they'd just put whatever Chinese cards normally use*.

* Which for all I know could be the same as how ICBC's configuring them now, but still.

There are places that are chip and signature that also accept UnionPay, like in Taiwan and South Korea. If it was PIN preferred, I think the card would become a problem when used there (where customer facing equipment is rare outside of major tourist areas, at least in Taiwan).

That may only be an issue if offline PIN is used. At least in the US online PIN support seems to be uncommon outside the major stores that supported debit pre-EMV (but offline PIN is generally kept enabled regardless).

BTW I added the links for the other cards. The only differences for the URLs above seem to be the [card name][card network] portion. They seem to show the correct card name/type when visited but as always, YMMV.

In Taiwan, at least, I have seen that if a store accepts credit cards, the terminal is usually mounted towards the cashier with a very short cord (almost all use the VX520 without any customer facing stuff including Costco there, believe it or not). How are people going to enter their PIN's with this kind of setup? I think this is a problem.

My point was that it likely wouldn't be a problem even if US cards were PIN-preferring because there's a good possibility that the terminals in Taiwan would explicitly have PIN disabled--or at least have only online PIN disabled anyway. I'm not even sure UnionPay supports offline PIN at all, actually.