Eric's Beijing Diary

This morning, I went to a local branch of HSBC to open a Hong Kong bank account. I had thought I could open a US dollar checking account, but it turns out that is not possible. Actually, you can do it, but the checks would not be good outside of Hong Kong, so it would serve no purpose. So I had to content myself with a Hong Kong dollar account. I won't bore you with all of the details, but international banking is a bit of a nuisance in China. Perhaps you've heard me say that before. Anyway, to spare you a boring litany of my banking woes, I will simply list a few things you can do to make life in China a bit more manageable.

1. Open a savings account with an ATM. I use ICBC for this purpose, for the simple reason that they have more ATM's than anyone else. You can carry your ATM card with you, and use it anywhere in China. In larger supermarkets, it can even be used as a debit card. Most of the time, however, it cannot used for purchases in place of cash. But it's still handy, because you can travel anywhere in China, including Hong Kong, without carrying a lot of cash.

2. Open a Bank of China US dollar account so that you can cash US dollar checks. Bank of China requires 45 days for a US check to clear, but that's livable. If you can, try to get a VISA card from Bank of China. This is not easy to do if you are a foreigner--they usually tell you to forget it. I was able to get one by having the Software College verify my income, and by having the office manager give her ID number. The importance of a credit card is that it is one of the few legal ways to convert RMB, which is generally not a convertible currency. The way it works is that you get a bill each month for credit card purchases in US dollars. If you hand carry the bill to the bank, they will let you pay it in RMB, and give you a receipt in dollars.

Leave it at that for the time being. If you need to do more stuff internationally, you will have to decide between an American account, or a Hong Kong account.