Banking in China

Today was my second excursion to open a bank account in China. HSBC wanted US$2,000 to open an account, charged a high maintenance fee each year and they can't issue debit and credit cards to foreigners according to Chinese banking laws.

So, I tried the Bank of China.

If you find banking difficult to understand in the states, opening an account in China will leave you struggling if you don't have someone with you that speaks Mandarin. The forms aren't that difficult because they're bilingual but you have some questions about what a passbook is -- a savings book they update when you go to a teller or that they must have when you withdraw money at the teller. There are a few other boxes you have to check to do things that you just take for granted in the states (eg. a box to check to transfer funds between accounts).

Once they have your form and a copy of your passport, they start creating your debit card and passcode for your account. It's a six # password and you are asked to enter it about 10 times. You have no idea why you're entering it after they are done creating your debit card, but they ask for it over and over and over. Finally you hand your money to deposit to the teller. It costs 10.25RMB (US$1.30) each year to keep an account at the bank of China. After they charge you that, you can have as little as 1RMB (12.5 cents) in the account until the end of the year.

As you can tell, banking in China is actually very similar to the US. "E-banking" and telephone banking exist - in Chinese. You can get a debit card. ATMs are plentiful and you can choose your language - Chinese or English. You can use your ATM card from the states to withdraw funds. Credit cards exist and so do some rewards cards. You can have your paycheck deposited directly.

What's different is the fact that you can't get a joint checking and savings account and you can only get one debit card for the account. When you use a debit card, you can only withdraw money in multiples of 100RMB (US$12.50) and you can ONLY use it in China. You also can't convert large sums of money from RMB to US$. That's very strictly controlled. You can't do an ACH transfer in China like you can between bank accounts online in the US between a bank like Chase and ING Direct.

Getting a credit card however, is quite a hassle. You are required to bring in your leasing agreement or mortgage; your passport; three months worth of paystubs - so if you're new to the country, you have to wait; and one other document which I believe is your companies' license to work in China (not sure on the last one). So much for using something like a social security number and credit bureau score to make it simple. Bank of China didn't issue a rewards cards either. They had just two card choices.

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