Best way to send money to china? paypal? IBT?

[md1101]

Is it possible to send money to a chinese person in china using paypal? (thats sending foreign currency - AU$). then paypal would have to be able to transfer that back into the chinese users accounts (and change it to chinese RMB).

is there another good method? --> thats cheap. International bank transfers would work but they are expensive.

[imron]

If it's going to be something you would do on a regular or long-term basis, one solution is to open a bank account with a bank-card that can be used in China, and then send the person in China the bank-card. When you want to send them money, just put money in the account and then they can withdraw it from an ATM in China.

Unfortunately this solution is no good for one-offs, or if you need to do it immediately.

[KingKitega]

Also, note that if you transfer money into your local account, unless the transfer is made in RMB, you will need it converted via the till. Otherwise you wont see it.. Took me 2 weeks to work this out..

[md1101]

yeah imron i thought that was a good idea but it is just a one off so im thinking international bank transfer.... its expensive though

[imron]

The other option is if you have any non-Chinese friends currently in China, who also have a paypal/foreign bank account. Calculate an exchange rate you both agree on + x for their troubles, deposit money in their bank/paypal account, and then have them pay whoever in China the equivalent in RMB.

[venture160]

Western Union 西联汇款 for me has been the fasted (done in minutes) and cheapest(lowest fees)。 There is a desk at most China Posts 中国邮局 and agricultural banks 农业银行 in Beijing and throughout China. If you go to western unions website there is a listing city by city in China of their locations。 Highly reccomended!!

[xianhua]

Has anyone used Bank of China branches abroad to make deposits which will then be available to withdraw in China? What's the 麻烦 rating, if so?

Western Union fees are a little bit pricey (more so for China than other Asian countries I see), plus we have to pull in favours from my wife's friend who works in the bank to get the transaction sorted at the other end (despite the bank being listed as a designated Western Union outlet).

[Triling]

So what is the best solution to this problem?

It seems like there are many options but it's hard to tell what's the best way because of several variables:

1. transaction fee for transfer

2. currency exchange rate used for the transfer 

3. speed

 

as far as transaction fee goes, paypal and xoom are low, but it seems like they charge a lot for currency exchange rate by using a crappy rate.

what are the banks that allow inter-bank transfer with the lowest rates?

[shuoshuo]

Western Union is the best method I know of, despite high fees (about 10%) would also like to hear how others get this done.

I've seen a lot of ICBCs or BOCs in Singapore. Does anyone know if it's possible for someone in Singapore to deposit money into my Chinese bank account and if I can withdraw that money here in China? The person doesn't have a Chinese bank account though.

[AlexBlackman]

I'm also interested in the answer to Shuoshuo's question.  The big Chinese banks have branches in Sydney and it would be useful to be able to cheaply put money into their Chinese account holders accounts.

[dnevets]

I once transferred money from my Chinese account (Everbright) back home to my UK account. Wow. The bank staff were terrified - I assume they'd never done it before. They actually told me to close my account and go to a different bank ("go to Bank of China, they're good!"). I persuaded them to do it in the end, but it took nearly 2 hours in total, for a task that should've taken no more than 5 minutes. If you can find a bank willing to do a direct transfer, do that - it is fast (the transfer, not the bank staff ^_^) and surprisingly cheap. The Chinese bank didn't charge me at all, and the UK bank only charged a fee of £7.

[Angelina]

Thanks Dnevets.

What will happen with the China International Payment System and how will it affect banking and money transfers?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/09/us-china-yuan-payments-exclusive-idUSKBN0M50BV20150309

[Guest realmayo]

Yesterday I used internet banking to transfer money from my UK bank account to someone else's account in Taiwan. It was very easy and the fee was around 1%. Super easy and cheaper than I'd expected. Would it be any different for the PRC? I'm guessing that things have got much easier & cheaper since this topic was started years ago.

[Lu]

If I'm not mistaken, the renminbi is not a freely exchangeable currency (I'm saying it wrong, but that's the idea), while the NT$ probably is. That might go a long way in making one difficult while the other is still easy. A few years ago I transfered all the money from my Taiwanese bank account to my Dutch account, and while it wasn't free, it was fairly easy and not expensive. I think I only needed my passport (fortunately, because it was a few years after I worked there, so I didn't even have a visa). From all accounts, doing that is much, much harder in China and requires large amounts of paperwork.

[Guest realmayo]

Perhaps. HSBC says they can send UK money to a non-HSBC account in China no problem. But maybe they've got very good China links.

http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/international-money-transfer