Chinese Banking: Throw Your Hands Up

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Throw your hands up, throw your hands up in the air
Wave 'em round the place, prissy staff ain't gonna care
Chinese banks in the house, money here and everywhere
But try and move that money and you're in for a big scare
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And so that's how it goes. Not that money 'ma fan' (trouble) is a surprise or anything. Banking in China has always been a nightmare. It was like this 10 years ago when I first tried doing international bank transactions. Absolutely nothing has changed in terms of regulations on what to do with the RMB. For this reason I'm very grateful that our company pays our salary in foreign currency. Many schools pay teachers in RMB which is a disaster if you want to transfer that money out of the country.

The official way to do things involves taking RMB into the bank and changing it into USD or other foreign currency. No matter which type of account you have, or which currency you want to change, the bank will ask for the following documents

-- passport
-- copy of work contract
-- tax receipts
-- foreign experts certificate
-- proof of residency

Even if you have a multi-currency account and want to transfer RMB from one account into Hong Kong dollars into another account, the same crap is required.

Obviously, nobody in their right mind would go through such hassle. That's why the black market money changers can do this service for you. In fact, every bank has a dodgy guy like this hanging out near the information desk. You approach him, or he approaches you, and the money is changed on the spot. The whole thing is a joke because it all takes place in front of the bank employees and these guys even use the counting machines at the bank to check the money before the deal is done.

I collected two business cards and will be using these contacts repeatedly.

But changing RMB into USD is child's play compared to the whole story of performing international money transacations from within China. This opens up a whole realm of 'ma fan' if you want to, for example, accept a money transfer overseas or do a transfer to another country from bank branch that is based in China. The details and restrictions are endlessly complicated.

It was expected to be difficult from the get go, so I'm not angry or anything, just have to get creative. It turns out that a necessary trip to Hong Kong will sort out the complications. If I physically go down to Hong Kong and open up a second account at the HSBC there, I can link up my existing Shanghai account and get online access to do unrestricted money transactions, and so forth.

In the case of a remittance I want to do, I will simply wait until going to Hong Kong and do exactly like the locals do: bring piles and heaps of cash across the border. That'll be March 16, and I figure why not get some electronics while I'm down there.

The irony here is that HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Not exactly a global financial hub here in Shanghai like they aspire to. But whatever, the archaic money rules have benefits as well as frustrations.

One British guy wasn't exactly taking this in stride. He stormed out of the bank just before I walked in and screamed, "Jesus Christ, this bank is sh*t" His poor Chinese secretary would have lost face over that, I'm sure.