Cashing Out - the 2018 edition

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Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« on: December 18, 2018, 02:26:01 AM »
My current experience says regulations are real now. The dodges used in the past to send money out of China really are being squeezed out of common practice. Chinese citizens now have to be more real in explaining the money they send, and if foreigners want to send money, they'd better have all their documents and do it according to law...

So that's how it is now? The wild and easy days of remittance and money laundering are done?
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2018, 04:30:08 AM »
As an example, I guess, scroll down to the reasons allowable and documents required for citizens buying/sending foreign money...

http://www.icbc.com.cn/icbc/personal%20banking/crossborderfinancialservices/icbccurrencyexchange/buyfxpersonal/

Purchase Reasons

Documents Required

Overseas study at one's own expense (including all persons going abroad for study or training at their own expenses)

Pay for the tuition fees (scholarship excluded) of the first academic year /semester

Customer shall provide originals and copies of common passport and valid visa, admission letter from the overseas school, and proof of fees (Faxed copies of admission letter and proof of fees or copies downloaded from internet are also acceptable if the original copies cannot be provided. The same below).

Pay the living expenses of the first academic year/semester

Customer shall provide originals and copies of common passport and valid visa, admission letter from overseas school, and proof of living expenses issued by school/embassy/government (original copies or faxed copies or copies downloaded from internet).

Pay the tuition fees (scholarship excluded) of the second academic year/semester and after

Customer shall provide copies of common passport and valid visa, proof of fees for the year/semester.

Pay the living expenses of the first academic year/semester

Customer shall provide copies of common passport and valid visa, certificate of studying (student card) and proof of living expenses issued by school/embassy/government (in original copies or faxed copies or copies downloaded from internet).

Can only get student visa after paying for certain security deposit

Customer shall provide common passport, admission letter and proof of tuition fee issued by the overseas school, proof of living expense fee issued by school/embassy/government in original copies or faxed copies or copies downloaded from the internet. ID Card and household register shall also be submitted.

Overseas medical treatment

Customer shall provide originals and copies of common passport and valid visa (or visa endorsement), proof of medical treatment issued by the domestic hospital with doctor's opinion and proof of fees (in original or faxed copy) issued by the overseas hospital.

Overseas training

Customer shall provide originals and copies of common passport and valid visa (or visa endorsement) and proof of fees (in original or faxed copy) for overseas training.

Personal membership fee of international organizations abroad

Customer shall provide payment notice (in original or faxed copy) issued by international organizations abroad and ID Card or household register.

Overseas mail

Customer shall provide advertisement or order or other proof of charge (in original or faxed copy or copy downloaded from the internet) and ID Card or household register.

Emergency assistance to direct relatives abroad

Customer shall provide proof of relation issued by authorized department or notary agency, documents (in original or faxed copy) related to the assistance and ID Card or household register.

Overseas consultancy

Customer shall provide written application, identity document, contract (agreement), invoice (payment notice) and tax payment documents.

Other fees for service and trade

Written application, identity document, contract (agreement), invoice (payment notice) and tax payment documents shall be provided.

Trade in goods and other related fees

Customer shall provide written application, identity document, Customs Declaration for Import Goods; contract (agreement), invoice (payment notice) (in original or faxed copy or copy downloaded from the internet).

Pay overseas spending or expenses without credit cards

Customer shall provide written application, identity document and proof of overseas spending or expenses. The customer shall apply for the purchase of foreign exchange within two month after returning from abroad.
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2018, 04:34:17 PM »
I think most of that applies to larger amounts.  I see US $50k and US $10k mentioned at various points on the page.

So, if you need to pay off an overseas credit card for modest amounts, I think the paperwork should be easier.  Once you get above $10k things get more complicated.  If you exceed $50k, things get much more complicated.  This will make life harder on people trying to secretly hide a fortune offshore, but shouldn't be a significant burden on anyone with legitimate needs.
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2018, 06:35:40 PM »
Yeah, given appropriate levels of documentation, the rules are probably easy enough to navigate. Point seems to be though that the rules are being applied now. According to anyone who might be involved in my own financial ducking and diving, the days of essentially unquestioned foreign exchange by the average Chinese citizen are over. And thus over for me too.
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2018, 07:07:18 PM »
I think the best option for you is to move your money in smaller increments.  That eases the amount of paperwork needed.  If you wait until you've got a huge pile of cash to send back to your home country, things can get complicated.
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2018, 08:53:49 PM »
Adventures in Banking

Last week...

After a scant fifteen years to begin complying with contract conditions, the Accounting Office last week said, "heh heh, we dumbasses." This was translated as "You can have this month's tax receipts because in a week the Accounting Office must sequester themselves to be dumbasses and a week isn't enough time TO FIND THE TAX RECEIPTS FOR YOUR OTHER MONTHS?! 0.o"

Yesterday...

The plan had been to take that one tax receipt and go to the bank anyway. It wouldn't convince anyone of anything much, but I'd be able, we all hoped, to legally exchange that one month's salary anyway. Well, one of the office staff was detail to hie herself down to that same Accounting Office and see if they were still dumbasses or if another month's tax receipts could be extracted from their shadowy grasp. Thirty minutes later we had a second copy of the same month we had last time and I got a chance to look over these alleged "tax receipts" anyway.

I had thought a tax receipt would be a paper, possibly stamped, that said I had paid tax. But it's not. It's a bundle of papers. One month requires a literal fistful of documents detailing this and that payment and a bunch of other arcana.

Well, this was all quite stupid so I followed that staffer downstairs to the Accounting Office to lay eyes on these thieves and liars. I found a skinny woman finger pointing. It was all staffer's fault, apparently... (It wasn't.) So by then there was me, the staffer, and a more senior secretary all saying, yo, unclench yo grasp, skinny witch, someone has to leave the goddamned country son! We were directed next door. Next door was three desks of hunched men looking hunted. One hunched man of greasy mien and beady eyes was cajoled into saying wait a minute. Wait a minute, he said, in English. Heh heh, wait an hour... I said I'd waited two months...

But they were going to fetch the documents. Some magical process that couldn't take a week last week would take an hour now and... I'll see you tomorrow, I said, and left the staffer to administer.

Today...

Documents! Woo! All of them. Yay! We set off for ABC at 9:30am.

Now, owing to someone's gigantic kickback, my employer deals with ABC rather than a real bank. Scuttlebutt says most staff transfer their salary to ICBC each month rather than leave it in ABC. I didn't know. Mine was all still in ABC.

So, first I wanted to tell them my new passport number. The main branch in this city said, nyahnyahnyah, fingers in my ears, you have to go to the branch you where you opened your account.... (That branch doesn't exist, they all moved literally to a branch right next to my school, and last week when we went there to have them recognise my new passport they'd said they needed some letter from the main branch o.0.....)

Then I wanted them to recognise my new phone number. Same deal as for passport info, go see original branch.

Then I wanted some legal foreign exchange. And nope. They said they no longer offer personal foreign exchange services.

Then I said you guys suck, give me all my money.

And they said, sorry, if you had your passport with you, you could take out all your money, but today you can only take out a maximum of 49900.

Agricultural Bank of China - not an actual bank.

Anyway, a big red brick of 49900 daylight mugging death warrants in my limp and weeping grasp, we left the "bank"

On the way to Bank of China I was not knocked on the head. This day was therefore a success. And it was still only 10am.

Yadda yadda yadda, two hours later we left the Bank of China. Nothing terrible happened there. Every process was in actual fact always moving forward, just really really slowly. One stumbling point in opening a BoC account was they wanted a street address for were I was born. No really, they did. It's right there on the form. You have to say your country of birth, the city, and the "detailed address". Well, a long time and a made up address later, we all found out the card was too new to be used in such a large foreign exchange transaction. So I do have a new Bank of China account, and we do have all the paperwork ready to go for next week when we go back to see if (a) the exchange can be made, and (b) the foreign funds thus obtained can be sent out of China.

Weee, still not dead in a ditch!
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #6 on: December 28, 2018, 04:08:46 PM »
That reminds me.  I updated my passport info with ICBC a few years ago.  Now I need to update with my newest passport and may as well see how they react to a green card while I'm at it.

Make sure to take your passport back to ABC to extract the rest of your funds.  While there, see if you can get set up for online banking.  If you can, then you can electronically transfer money from ABC to your account at BoC (or ICBC or any other bank in China).
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #7 on: December 28, 2018, 09:36:17 PM »
I think I've fallen into a strange parallel universe.

There's a bank employee sitting on my sofa with all the paperwork to open an account.  My wife was thinking of opening an account at Ping An bank, but didn't want to take the time to go to the nearest branch.  They sent someone out with all the papers. mmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmm


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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2018, 02:46:05 PM »
^^^ that's cashing in. And your wife's a property owner. And... Ping An's a private company?
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #9 on: December 31, 2018, 03:48:00 PM »
Ping An is a Chinese insurance company that opened its own banking company in China.  I'm not sure when it started, but I've been seeing more and more banks that aren't part of the big government owned banks.

They didn't even ask if my wife was a property owner.  My wife contacted them about the interest rates offered on some bonds (not that this does not require a large investment), said she was too busy to come in, and an employee made an appointment to come here.  All the papers were signed and my wife got the ATM card, a calendar, and a gift box of dried dates - and she still hasn't deposited any funds.

I think Ping An is doing this to aggressively compete for customers.  I'll also wager that a foreigner would have to show up in person to open an account for some reason or other.
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #10 on: January 02, 2019, 07:15:06 PM »
Adventures in Banking II...

9:30am - arrived Bank of China
11:30am - departed Bank of China

In between, deposited stack o' cash, had said stack and last week's stack converted to fifteen thousand Oz bucks, sent said Oz bucks winging their way to Oz banks.

Documents required: tax receipts, indications of salaries paid, work contract, passport, bank card

Kinda slow, but essentially straightforward given documents in hand.


No particular reason for choosing Bank of China over ICBC except that last week everyone on the ground was saying ABC can't, maybe BoC can.
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2019, 03:41:34 PM »
A little patience, a little llllllllll, and eventually things can work out - until your bank down under accidentally puts all your money into someone else's account. ahahahahah
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Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2019, 09:44:59 PM »
Calach, I'm late to the party with this, but is there an HSBC anywhere near you? In Beijing we went to talk to them about an account and they made quite a big deal about how helpful they could be in getting money out of China.

Re: Cashing Out - the 2018 edition
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2019, 01:42:28 PM »
In the provincial capital there is, about 45 minutes away by high speed train.  0.o

But around here the biggest problem is getting the tax documentation out of the school. The experience with BoC was basically straightforward after that. ICBC probably will be equally ok. I'll possibly try them out next time.
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