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Hi,
Could anyone on the forum point me in the right direction about where can I get foreign currency in city.
I need USD, CAD, HKD,GBP,EUROS and SGD not at the same time of course but I am just wanting information for future reference when it comes to travelling and having some foreign cash on me depending on which location I am travelling to.
Any information would be great thank you.
There are underground “services” for things like this, basically Chinese guys with wads of cash in different currencies that trade for RMB. I dealt with a guy like that for years and never had a problem but lost his number about a year ago. I’m not sure what kind of legit options there are for getting your hands on these currencies in Chengdu, though.
Take your money and your passport and go to bank of china, the one with red logo… And should be no problem if less than 50000 yuan…
Have to be big banks, preferably, bank of china which is responsible for all stuff concerning money or fund issues with foreign countries…
Any foreigner in China worker or tourist are entitled to exchange RMB to USD at 500 USD per day Only , you can’t exchange more then 500 USD per day exchange is monday to friday exchange can’t be down on a week end Stock market closed .
Take your money and your passport and go to bank of china, the one with red logo… And should be no problem if less than 50000 yuan… Have to be big banks, preferably, bank of china which is responsible for all stuff concerning money or fund issues with foreign countries…
Really, that’s pretty amazing. Fair exchange rate? What’s required, just a passport and the RMB that you want to change?
@charlie: dude, you would never know how much trouble I got just to answer this one.. And I literally broke down my Pc into pieces and reassembled it. Which I admit , is actually of great fun, despite the 10 or 12 screws that fit nowhere and a broken shift key. ( why i had n never done this before ? If I am gonna to have a baby, I d encourage her to screw off every single piece of the furniture and reassemble it together with her… ) ..
ok , enough for the rumbling , u might think of me as a wind bad already though….haha… About the exchange rate, it is generally regulated by our central bank, the people s bank. But it does differ between banks, but just slightly. The reason to recommend BOC， is that BOC specializes in international business and should be seen more often than other Chinese banks oversea. So it is less risky and if any problem, u might get help even when you are not in china.. Also , the exchange rate of BOC , if not higher than all Chinese banks, should be higher than most banks since it is the “example ” of all banks. .. And last but also fairly important , is that BOC is the only bank with this kinda service if your money is not US dollars , eu dollars or this kinda commonly used currency.
Oh , and I admit the fact my sis works in BOC , but trust me, her salary has nothing to do with all above.. The best thing of working in the bank , Chinese bank , is that your salary has nothing to do with anything except who you are and how long you ve been there.
And windbag as I am , I really wanna say IBM isa great company, Since I found 8 to 10 different kinds of crews without sone of which, nothing seems different , and that each piece is so exactly measured and designed, that I have to pry it open little by little, only to find, the inside is not as dirty as I thought at all, which I thought was the reason why my pc corrupts And freezes so often.
Nonsense.
Just before the holidays I went to do an exchange and both CMB and BOC require extra documentation for exchanges, except maybe the $500usd thing, neither mentioned that whatsoever, and required about 6 pieces of documentation in order for me to make an exchange and buy USD. Including taxes paid on incomes earned in last months in China. Turns out it’s easier for me to ask a coworker to head downstairs on my behalf, show his SFZ and do an exchange in a few minutes…but as a foreigner, buying foreign currency at a bank in China is a f’in headache without someone to help you buy or one of the arrive-at-your-office exchange people which I too lost touch with.
Another shitty ‘process’, I can not make a USD deposit into my HSBC account unless I do it in person, nobody else can do it for me (in person or not), and I need to be at the bank in order to do a transfer from a NOTES to EXCHANGE account, and it needs to be in that EXCHANGE account before it can be transferred to Canadian-based account. Love the convenience. Fuckin nonsense. I have to do these transfers routinely, which luckily at least, HSBC Premier does free if done online.
@Rick: no offense, I am extremely surprise each time I hear people complaining about the ” process” or the ” procedure” I wonder , if I am in America or I am in Canada, I can carry my money to the bank to exchange , without none of this ” process” or the service fee ?
what I replied was the standard procedure , and I just called my sis about the details.
1. If it is below 500 used dollars , u can exchange for free and no documents needed .
2. Beyond that , 4 documents needed .
Your labour contract .
Tax payment proof .
social security card, or social security payment proof, if no, the foreign expert proof.
Your passport.
and the exchange fee , zero.
3. That s the standard process. And of course you can go to banks to find the security guard, they can exchange money all the time, but will they trust you !?
4. A Suggestion here , if I were a foreigner in china , I don’t complain all those stuff all the time, and I experience I learn , that things like passport, your labour contract, your tax payment proof, your social security payment proof …. All those stuff are important everywhere, so I d make tons of copies and bring them with me whenever I wanna do something with the government or state owned company just in case. And I would prepare myself for the other forms I need to fill in. When all these are Done , u can also finish within minutes.
Plus, u might not n know it, I believe your Chinese friend had also gone through at least some of these troubles When he tried to help. but as A Chinese, I believe he wouldn’t tell u this…
darn it, such a beautiful day , I should have gone out and bicycle somewhere.
It’s not the case in most countries Tina. There aren’t tight controls on forex nor money transfers in/out of country – when you want to exchange currency you can, in many places without even presenting ID, and if you’ve ever been to a western union or whatever in a foreign country you’d be shocked with how little information you require to send money to another person. There is, of course, a small fee for those services, just like banks balance exchange in their favour often in place of direct fees. Don’t trick yourself into thinking exchange is “free”, it’s never free, anywhere…
Tax documentation isn’t as easy to procure as you may think. I don’t know many companies with the ability, or resources/time, to provide tax documentation on the fly every month (You do require updated documentation EACH time you do an exchange, as a foreigner, in China..you can’t just show them once, you have to bring it each time you do an exchange) and is the most ‘pain in the ass’ of those documents. The point is, it’s tightly controlled here, and it makes it an extraordinary hassle for *FOREIGNERS* to deal with. For Chinese, no, it’s not a hassle. I walk up to the counter with my coworker, they show their SFZ, money exchanged, we grab some wings and head back to office. Done in minutes, minus the waiting in line which sometimes takes place.
AMASON: For your convenience, depending where you’re flying out of (if you’re connecting in SH, for example), personally I just exchange at the airport. The exchange rate is often not so great but if you just need a little bit of cash for taxi/food/whatever on arrival it’s alright there, if it’s an international transfer try to exchange outside of the int’l zone for better rates.
@Rick: no offense, I am extremely surprise each time I hear people complaining about the ” process” or the ” procedure” I wonder , if I am in America or I am in Canada, I can carry my money to the bank to exchange , without none of this ” process” or the service fee ?
Yeah, you actually can, it’s incredibly easy in other countries, not just America or Canada. China has strict monetary controls which prevent people from freely exchanging currency, which is why there’s so much hassle (and illegality) associated with exchanging between currency types.
These processes are often vastly different for Chinese people than they are for foreigners, so in many cases it’s just easier to have a Chinese person complete tasks like this for you.
A Suggestion here , if I were a foreigner in china , I don’t complain all those stuff all the time, and I experience I learn , that things like passport, your labour contract, your tax payment proof, your social security payment proof …. All those stuff are important everywhere, so I d make tons of copies and bring them with me whenever I wanna do something with the government or state owned company just in case.
I think this would be impossible. I have all those things but would never walk around with copies of them, I would just find an easier way to get those things done without them.
I see Chinese people do this all the time every single day: just find ways to sidestep the laws and procedures which everyone knows are ridiculous. We’re all inside a system that often makes little or no logical sense. That’s China, a lot of the time, and that’s why foreigners can get so frustrated with all the various systems of control here. In my social circle we call that The China Blues.
@ Charlie: wow , really !! I can carry my money to the bank and just exchange without any hassle , no files , no documents at all. … Wow , I can think of 100 ways to steal the money from the bank then.. Too bad ,I guess those smart Chinese thieves just love thier own country too much , for if they go abroad, there would be numerous chances for them to be rich …..
You know actually no bank in this world can detect all kinds of fake money? About the china blue, Well, this has been the unaccountable time I tell people that, since laws are made to make sure nobody get hurt, if I go sidewalk, and nobody gets hurt, so ? Also , laws are made by those who control, how are u so sure that the law is fair With everybody…Equality in the end, exists only in one thing , that we can choose the way we wanna live ..( I met the smartest guy in the world, he agrees with me but still stand by the law, haha ) …I don’t see that if I am a poor kid from faraway place , if I play by the rule , what s good I am gonna get (except me feeling I am a noble man..) ?
And strange thing is that you guys never complain about your job, and don’t tell me there are no ridiculous rules or procedures in your work… But you don’t complain about it, because your boss is the one who write checks ..haha ..so , you see you guys are way much smarter than us …. Haha
this one is particularly meaningless, I don’t know why I put it down after all, it is just IMPOSSIBLE to make a foreigner understand China, and our little petty mind lingers in the things that are beautiful but doomed to be destroyed..
it is just IMPOSSIBLE to make a foreigner understand China
Apparently it is equally impossible to make a Chinese person understand China, since everyone has widely varying ideas of what it is. Since there is no clear widespread objective description, it’s fair to say you, Tina, equally don’t understand China, no? You only understand “your” China, just like I understand mine.
@anyone who can see it: wanna retrieve that one I just put……Totally pointless… Anyway , I was just trying to tell about what I know ..
@ charlie: …. .. now I see those you asked in the first place are merely rhetorical questions…
@rick: you are right man, I have never been out of this country before.. I just love our shitty country and I am pretty comfortable here , haha …….@ Rick: you are right , man . I love your way to put it, but the difference is that, as a Chinese , I perceive my country in a way deeper , and with more complexing feelings.Cause I grew up here, I know its history, its sadness , I feel everything that most Chinese people feel, and most importantly , those who I i care about are here, and those, are the people you guys are constantly judging … And for that I d unconsciously defend , even if i know sometimes you guys are right ( and then it is not hard to know why sometimes there are silent Chinese and angry Chinese in this forum right ? while actually those are sometimes who helped you guys the most… , since not many Chinese people know this forum, they must got it from some of their friends )
Haha , it reminded me some unhappy incidence, someone told me that I made him feel like , his whole family is awful And I had no clue back then… I guess I owe him an apology.
Opps , need go prepare the dinner !!!!
@ Tina Tan Whats Charlie , Rick try to make you understand it’s the none sense we all encounter here in your pretty country we all leaving in by now (foreigner or Chinese ), don’t be so self defensive and too proud , take some back up and try to analyze deeply the meaning of Charlie and Rick on their comments Upper, witch make sense , a part of thats relax and tomorrow will be a great sunny day for you Have a Good One ( Evening ) cheers ^^
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