China electronic transfers · Electronic transfers in China
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Electronic transfers in China
Electronic transfers in China
Electronic money transfers to another country are no longer as difficult as they used to be. Just about every bank in the big cities offer this service nowadays. On the other hand, service charges are variable (depends on the sending and receiving bank), the staff is sometimes ill-trained, and the process can take up to a week. Alternatively, you may choose to look to a Chinese branch of a foreign or Hong Kong-based bank to do your transfers from. This is easier in the big cities, though.
It will be MUCH easier if you have an dual-currency account with the Bank of China - opened at the branch from which you plan to get your money. Electronic transfers to dual currency accounts incur no or very low fees although it will usually take about one week. Transfers to Chinese accounts from overseas also take from three to ten business days. All you need to start an account is your passport, visa and a small initial deposit (can be RMB) plus the new-account fee (¥10-20). If you open a foreign currency account or a dual currency account, be sure to check if you will be able to access it in another province (e.g. the Bank of China does not allow this as of 2006). Alternatively, for visitors from the US, Wells Fargo offers a service called ExpressSend that allows someone to send money from the US and have it arrive at a China Agricultural Bank account on the same day.
Western Union has deals with China Agricultural Bank and with China Post so there are a lot of Western Union signs around. This is what overseas Chinese sending money to relatives, or expats sending money out of China, generally use; it is generally easier and cheaper than the banks. A list of locations is available through Western Union's website. There may, however, be problems. Their "system" may be "down" or the employee you deal with may ask for silly things ? for an overseas transfer, the recipient's passport number and visa number; for a within-China transfer, cash in U.S. dollars. Just try another branch if you are having difficulties.
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China Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.