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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Is there any point keeping a foreign bank account?
I plan to stay here for the unforeseeable future and all my income goes into my Chinese bank account. My foreign account is just dormant. Im afraid with the financial crisis ravaging the west, that my once free account will suddenly cost money so that my meager savings in the foreign bank will gradually, and silently, deplete. Are there any old China hands here with advice?
11 years 46 weeks ago in Money & Banking - China
Redaria,
I would move the amount to a mainland bank. It is relatively easy these days to convert RMB to dollars. In my city, I just phone up the main branch of the Bank of China, tell them who I am, how much I will need, etc., what time I will drop in, and then I mosey on over with my passport in hand and about 20 minutes later, it's all done. Banking in the PRC these days is relatively transparent and far more fee-less than overseas.
My bank account back home is useful. I have a credit card that's linked to it. I've regularly used this visa card the last 4 years if I need to buy something expensive over the internet (like my flight tickets back home).
I keep as much as I need in the account so it is not so much dormant.
It stays as 1 less hassle if foreigners were all suddenly kicked out of China. I think there are limits to how settled you try to get here, and with your personal banking I think its best to keep that option open.
My bank account back home is my backup. It has enough for a set of plane tickets, and I have a master card for it. It is also a lot easier if I need to give or receive money from anyone back home.
In everyday life in China, it is not needed for anything.
credit unions in america dont shake you down for fees , so i put a little in a credit union so i have a credit card and an account if i have to go back in a hurry, but all the rest i keep in canada , the dollar is being printed like toilet paper so i feel safer with most of it in canada.
As long as you're an European and US citizen, you better have a foreign account outside of them. South America (Chile, Panama), never Argentina, Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, - maybe China too, though I hear how difficult is to get your money from your account when you leave the Country). Actually, with Cyprus at rise and in the loop of touching the bank user's savings issue by the EU, the whole banking system it's already a collapse. I wonder about how people would create their own ways to keep and transact with their money without using bank accounts. My 2 cents opinion.
ambivalentmace:
yes , i will lose some money in cyprus, i put money there in 1992 when i left the french foreign legion, but what their taking is some of the interest i made through the years, but still it is a screwed up world , wish chinese banks had savings deposit boxes, but my luck an earthquake would hit my bank.
Big red where do you come up with your questions? Yet another one just because we come to china doesn't mean we get rid of our foreign bank acct back home! We have two for back home and for here because most companies at least that I know of will pay you through one of their banks in China.
Until you start working and making a living will you soon find this out! Until then keep studying at school ....