Best account for travelling (China)?

Mijin

Bit of a long shot, but I thought I'd ask if anyone had recommendations for a bank that is good for transferring to other countries, or has good international banking services?

I'm going to be working in China for at least 6 months, and I'm trying to prepare as much as I can at this end. I enquired at HSBC just because of their name (Human Sacrifice, no?), and they said they have an international account, but it costs £100 to open.

Googling around, HSBC is the only bank I found that has this kind of service to China. Sooo, my only options are pay the £100 or wait until I get there and find something?

grumbler

What "international banking services" do you actually need?
Can you not just use UK debit/credit cards and online banking?

Have a look at MSE article and you'll see that you probably don't need anything besides 2-3 correct UK cards.

• Your Card's Overseas Charges

Where will the money be paid to that you earn over there?

Mijin

grumbler wrote: »

Where will the money be paid to that you earn over there?

Exactly. At this point in time I don't know.

Thanks for the link, I actually bank with Halifax and had no idea they have that service. If I can be paid on an account like that, with interest-free withdrawals, I'm golden.

mulronie

China is a cash economy and as such they have ATMs all over the place

I was in China travelling (a load of cities in Guangdong, plus Chengdu, Shanghai and Beijing) for 2 months last year and I had absolutely NO trouble using my Halifax Clarity credit card to withdraw cash; just make a Faster Payment to it from your UK savings account afterwards and at most you get 1/2 days interest charge which is very little (on CNY 1000, about £100, it's less than 10p for 2 days interest at the current rate of 12.9% APR on the Halifax card).

Visa and Mastercard are accepted near-universally at ATMs. I had no problems with Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China ATMs across the country - they have English menus (not Chinglish!) and they are everywhere. Avoid the Postal Savings Bank, however, and try to use only ATMs in branches during business hours just in case.

As far as opening an account out there is concerned - account openings are a nightmare, all the forms are in Chinese and prepare to spend at least 2 hours in branch with a Chinese colleague/friend to deal with it all. Given that to spend you will have to draw from an ATM anyway, see if your employer will pay you in cash. Far, far easier.

woodlinkin

Have just returned from a two week trip round China - I took a Halifax Clarity card as my main source of cash, and it worked well until my credit ran out. On returning home I was told I had a credit limit of £1200, but only half of that for cash, so after I had withdrawn £600, Halifax did not allow me access to any more cash. Fortuneately I had another card, albeit more expensive for cash withdrawals. So I wonder how you managed - maybe Halifax allowed larger credit limits last year?

Also, I found it was very hit-and-miss as far as which ATMs allowed cash withdrawals. A lot of small Chinese banks declined the transaction. Bank of China ATMs worked, but I would not say they're "everywhere".

Lith

Yo,

Im in china now (as i type this post) work.... anyway i use my HSBC debit and credit card all the time no worries or hassle all smooth.

Fee's aren't that high either.