Transferring money INTO China?

[Graeme S]

So after a few years of sending money out of China I now need to buy a car and to transfer money back into China. Does anyone have any experience of this?

My bank in the UK have a foreign currency transfer with a flat fee but I’m unsure if there will be a charge this end or if there is a maximum amount which I can transfer into China?!

I have never used Western Union but if anyone knows the likely fees or has any info on it then this too will be greatly received. Basically if anyone has any experience transferring money into China it would be good to hear your experience.

It’s quite a bit of money so the % charge etc makes a difference. I bank with ICBC here.

Thanks in advance!

[Charlie]

This should be easy – just wire the money to yourself. Getting money into China is not difficult, it’s getting it out that is a pain.

[Graeme S]

Thanks Charlie. I assumed this would be the case but then someone mentioned the receiving banks charge between 7% and 8% of the total money transferred?! That’s significant….

I have a colleague trying to find out from the bank but as always with the bank getting a straightforward answer is more difficult than it should be.

[Charlie]

Graeme S wrote:

Thanks Charlie. I assumed this would be the case but then someone mentioned the receiving banks charge between 7% and 8% of the total money transferred?! That’s significant…. I have a colleague trying to find out from the bank but as always with the bank getting a straightforward answer is more difficult than it should be.

Aside from paying a small amount for the wire transfer I wouldn’t anticipate a fee like that (I should say, I have never heard of that). I don’t think you will have problems getting money into China – getting it out is the hard part. Now might be a good time to be buying RMB though since the value is going down.

[Graeme S]

Thanks again! Will let you know once it is all done and update the thread.

Yes a couple of things are in my favour now for bringing money back this way, the RMB value and the fact that I assume most car salesmen will be looking to up their CNY bonus/pay so there may be more deals to be had.

Will see what happens to the Chinese stock market tomorrow, it’s been shut early today after a 7% drop…. Note entirely surprising but the speed of it on the first day back of trading is a worrying picture.

[Charlie]

Graeme S wrote:

Thanks again! Will let you know once it is all done and update the thread.

Great, good luck. Feel free to contact me if you want to exchange a small amount of GBP for RMB, I can give you cash locally (I can exchange a few thousand GBP at a time).

Graeme S wrote:

Will see what happens to the Chinese stock market tomorrow, it’s been shut early today after a 7% drop…. Note entirely surprising but the speed of it on the first day back of trading is a worrying picture.

I agree, it is not confidence inspiring.

[Rick in China]

It completely depends on the amount. I can’t recall the amount, but for example, I transferred cash back to China to buy a house – around 250k USD at the time I think, maybe 200, and it required some footwork to allow the transfer via HSBC. I used HSBC because I could use my overseas premier account and open the same here leveraging that one – then not have to pay any transfer fee at all. I assume between different banks couldn’t be a simpler process, but don’t imagine it would be much more difficult. Here’s what I had to do:

Bank (China side) provided a list of documents required. I had to get the house contract (deposit was already paid) and it included me having to take some other documents to the People’s Bank of China (it’s the one on I think 2.5 ring road south?) which is the gov’t bank, and get a paper from them. Also had to get some additional papers signed and approved by the bank. I forget all the documents, but it did need me to run around a little. You should go to ICBC and talk to a manager and they’ll let you know whether the amount you are transferring requires any of this or not, but I’d imagine it’s around 50k USD which is the outgoing restriction for paperless transfers..but ICBC guy should be able to give you the details. I’d imagine for a car you’d need to provide similar.

There was no additional 7-8% fee as you mentioned, but again your bank should be able to tell you about that part as well, the fear should be how they do the exchange. In my case I transferred USD into my China side USD account then did the conversion directly on this side, from USD>CNY account here, so the transfer itself between USD accounts held no conversion whatsoever, and the USD>CNY conversion was at the banks actual rate for buying USD with CNY, which was fully acceptable. If you’re transferring from USD (or GBP?) into a CNY account, I’d want to ensure that they didn’t have a special fee, as I know for, for example, when you take money out via ATM overseas and there is a conversion there is often a lot of fuckery in their rate.

Good luck with it 😀

@Charlie re: “Now might be a good time to be buying RMB though since the value is going down.”

I’m doing the opposite. Buying all the Canadian dollar I can afford to right now. The rate is fantastic, better than I’ve ever seen it all my years in China.

[kirs10]

Charlie wrote:

Great, good luck. Feel free to contact me if you want to exchange a small amount of GBP for RMB, I can give you cash locally (I can exchange a few thousand GBP at a time).

Just to hijack this slightly, I’m looking to buy GBP – so you exchange RMB to GBP Charlie, or just the other way round?

[Merior]

I believe that HSBC in the UK do not charge for transferring funds to an HSBC account in China. Check in the UK first. The HSBC in China require you to have a Sterling account but you will pay a fee to transfer your £sterling into RMB as you would with any bank. N.B.  HSBC in the UK is not the same bank as HSBC in China albeit that they might be part of the same group. The same applies to the Bank of China.

There is/was a US $ 50,000 limit for transferring currency to and from China (should be more than that now) for each person named on the account. So a joint account in the name of 2 people would have a limit of 100,000 US $. The guidelines are, however, flexible if you can satisfy your bank that you are buying a property, for example and not a money launderer or whatever that the Chinese government frown on. Check with your bank in China first.

[Author]

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