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Forgot to mention I also needed a letter from my company stipulating my income which was stamped with the company chop.
Bertalan: Correct me if I’m misunderstanding, but you open the account with RMB and then pay subsequent card balances in USD or other currencies? In China?
What I’d love is a Visa that works internationally (and online) that is with an RMB-based account. That’d be the perfect solution for me and it sounds like Tigerkuma was close but the card didn’t actually work in places where Visa should.
Yes, the security deposit is in RMB and then you pay any balance on the card in Dollars, Euro or Pounds (whichever one you chose for the card when set up) to a Bank of China branch. Not all branches in Chengdu deal with foreign currency transactions so have to be careful here too.
The card works fine buying stuff on the internet as well, but from sites outside of mainland China.
I already have US credit cards, but of course if I use them there I will have to deal with foreign transaction fees and stuff. Someone suggested that I might go to a Chinese bank & open an RMB account with a Visa debit card & thereby avoid the fees. Does that seem like a good idea?
That’s exactly what Tigerkuma did but it turned out that in many places overseas (and online) the card didn’t work. I don’t think he knows why but if it won’t work online or at places where Visa is accepted, that makes it pretty useless. I think I’m just going to march into Merchants Bank and ask questions about this.
I figure overseas & online I’ll use my existing US credit cards. I just wondered if I should try to get a Chinese based one for local use. Is a credit card necessary/widely used there or do most people just pay cash?
If you want to use a credit card to make purchases on-line then you have to let the bank know. They then activate additional security.
@7 – When you sign up for a bank account here they will give you a union pay debit card. It works pretty much everywhere without charge.
I’m adding to this thread as it’s one that will continue to be relevant to new visitors in Chengdu…
Anyone still unsure about acquiring a credit card should check out the link below.
http://www.boci.com.hk/eng/creditcard/boci_cc_sc_cm.php
As well as providing a number of Visa cards to BoC customers, they also provide a prepaid, which they claim is good for worldwide use (exchange rate nit picking aside). The site is also in English, making things a good deal more straight forward.
@Brendan, does this mean that I will need to first set up a BoC (HK) account? Was mentioned in one of the previous posts that the BoC in various provinces are separate entities.
Wondering if anyone has applied for any of the cards through Brendan’s link.
Thanks!
They are indeed separate entities, as I found out much to my annoyance on a previous Hong Kong trip. On that occasion I had purchased HK dollars through my mainland Standard Chartered account, only to find once in HK that I had zero access to them. This led me to making inquiries with both BoC and Standard Chartered on my return, to see if it was possible to at least charge an HK Visa card through a partner mainland account, and the general consensus was that it was not. I was surprised just how little the staff at the mainland branches seemed to know about banking procedures between the two, it took several staff members and a number of phone calls to ‘deduce’ this.
What a shame. For a moment, I thought I saw light at the end of the tunnel.
It seems even the staff do not understand the complexity of the banking system here.
While I was in the states recently I got a Paypal Mastercard which draws funds from my US Paypal account (which receives money from my Chinese Paypal account, which comes from my Chinese bank account). Every once and a while I’ll transfer $1k US into my US Paypal account and can spend money from there using the Mastercard online or anywhere internationally.
Although in the US you can withdraw funds from your Chinese bank account at any Citibank.
@Charlie: yeah Citibank was the only bank that allowed me to withdraw using my Chinese card. I remember withdrwaing from a Citibank ATM around midnight in Bogota. Not the smartest thing i ever did(walked to the bus station VERY briskly!) but i was desperate.
Be very skeptical when getting info from the banks here. Often they want you out that door ASAP….
This is something I’ve gone round and round about in the six-odd months I’ve dwelt in the ‘Du. Contrary to the experience of some others posting here, my dealings with Western Union in China were not a particularly user-friendly experience.
I went with a Chinese colleague to a bank across town that was reputed to have Western Union capability. It did, but they said I would have to send US dollars, and not RMB. Of course, they did not exchange currency, so I was send to another bank a few hundred meters down the way. Once there, we found that foreigners are not allowed to exchange money in China (or at least at that bank – translations get garbled sometimes). Unfortunately, my colleague had not brought her ID, so we were stymied, at least until the boyfriend of the bank clerk, who was sitting right there lest someone hit on her, jumped up and offered to change the currency for us. Anything to get the laowai who was flirting with his lady out of there.
Then it was back to the first bank, where we were informed that they were no longer wiring money out of China that business day (it was all of 3:30 pm – bankers hours, I guess). So we were directed to a third bank, where we finally completed the transaction (after a total elapsed time of 2 + hours). Maybe there’s an easier way to use WU – I think some of the earlier posters could describe a better method – but I can’t currently recommend it, personally.
On the other hand, when I more recently tried to do a bank transfer, it took less than an hour, and was all completed within the same bank branch. I went to the Bank of China Sichuan Branch; the address is NO. 35 Section 2 Renmin Zhonglu. It’s right across from the Yafei Dental Clinic, the one that looks like a church or something inside.
At this Bank of China, there is an entire section off to the left devoted to overseas financial matters. They even speak a smattering of topic-related English, so no translator is required. All you’ll need is your banking information and your passport. You can bring RMB; no currency exchange is required. You just fill out a “Application for Individual Foreign Exchange Sale and Purchase” form, available at the front desk, and you are off to the races.
The fee was nominal; I remember it was roughly the same as when I Western Unioned an equivalent amount. Plus, I didn’t have to bother anyone back home to go and retrieve the money; it just went straight into my stateside account, which funds my visa card (the point of this thread: I also have not been able to get a local credit card, and have doubts as to its efficacy. However, I will try to get one at the link posted above).
Hope this helps someone.
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