Hello all,

I have some basic questions about opening a Chinese bank account. I want to do two things:

1. Use Taobao, Alipay, etc.
2. Have access to ATMs in rural areas, which I'll start traveling through in the next month.

I have heard that Agricultural Bank of China is a good choice for at least rural Yunnan, but I don't know what it is like in rural Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, etc.

Does anyone know what the relative distribution is between the major banks? Any experience or recommendations here would be appreciated.

I have a Bank of America account in the US and heard that wires to CCB are free. Is that still true?

Some other questions:
1. Is anything special required to open the account other than a passport? Do they need the household registration? I have a driving license now.
2. Any odd/other considerations I should keep in mind? I read that you have to mention wanting online access for one of the banks when you sign up.
3. Any strange fees, minimum balances, etc.?
4. Do they mail you the cards like most places? What is the setup time?

Thanks!
Matt

The only comments I can make are that Bank of China are in every city. As the national bank they are also permitted to exchange dollars, should you ever need to transfer monies from home. Not every bank is can do international transfers. This is worth considering in case of emergency.
Exchange rate fees in China are high, this seems to be universal.

Tha 3 main banks are -

BOC - Bank Of China
ICBC - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
ABC - Agricultutral Bank of China

These banks accept US bank cards and can be found everywhere and anywhere so getting money is easy and convenient. Many villages have the Yunnan Rural Credit Union or the China Post Bank but do not have the banks listed above. I travel far and wide and when I go out, I always get cash from an ATM in a larger town before setting off for the small villages.

In addition, BOC and ICBC seem to always have one ATM that will take foreign bank cards. I use BOC because they are everywhere and China Merchant Bank, CMB, because the service is faster and better.

Oddly, if you open a BOC account in Kunming there is a fee to deposit and withdraw in cities outside Yunnan, maybe other Yunnan cities as well. The fee is small and I ignore it. I have never gotten a statement from a Chinese bank.

Banking is China is usually face to face at the branch with your account.

You don't need a Chinese to go with you to open an account but I would bring a friend. When I lost an ATM card they asked me to ID the lady that helped me.

Online banking is problematic. I don't know about today, but I used online banking and it was in Chinese. It was fine for a year or so but they changed the input forms and I gave up. How good is your Chinese reading?

Bank of America owns shares in China Construction Bank. You can use your BofA ATM card and withdraw money from any China Construction Bank with no fees. The daily withdraw limit can be increased if you contact BofA customer service.

Thanks everyone. I'll go through it and respond tomorrow.

Beware! If you lose your card, most banks make you wait a week or so to get a new one, and you can't withdraw money without your card, even if you have your passport, etc, so basically for a week you have no access to your money. At least that's the policy for both ICBC and China Merchant's Bank.
Also, I would not recommend ICBC because of that and for another retarded policy: I opened my ICBC account while I was living in Chongqing last year. After I moved here my purse was stolen, so when I went in to replace my card they told me I had to go back to Chongqing to have my card replaced. Moronic. China Merchant's Bank replaced my card with minimal hassle except the waiting a week thing.

To withdraw from my Canadian account I prefer China Merchants Bank. The difference is in the max withdrawal size. CMB machines permit 3,000 RMB, while BOC tops at 2,500. The reason I do this is because I pay a fixed per withdrawal fee to my Canadian bank no matter what the amount is.

I can be 100% sure that u will find Postal Savings bank of China in any rural area of China. This bank used to be only post office in CN. So it has branches everywhere in China, though now it has been transformed into a bank. And u can get a account from it.

Good luck,
Stathis

China Construction Bank (probably BoC too?) may have a 2,500RMB maximum withdrawal, but you can withdraw multiple times...