Banking terms in Chinese

[miranets]

Hi guys

I work at a bank as a teller and one of the problems of being Chinese is that every Chinese customer that comes in assumes you can speak fluently to help them with their problems.

Now I have picked up a lot of vocab for banking terms like 'term deposits' 'account' 'automatic payments' etc etc while I have been there, but there are a few words I am still unsure about. Hopefully you guys can give me some appropriate pointers.

First thing, banking conduct requires tellers to call the customer by their title and surname.

So in Chinese for males, who are maybe older than 18 years, like teenage adults, we would call them eg. Cheng Xian Sheng. But could I call a younger person by their full name?

Now for females it is a much harder problem, I can get away with calling the ladies from teenage to maybe late 40s eg, Cheng Xiao Jie. But how would you appropriately say the title for someone much older, like perhaps when a mother 80, and son 40, have come in? Could I call her Cheng Ah Yi? I certainly couldnt call them Cheng Xian Sheng and Cheng Xiao Jie!

-- Now some technical words

I have heard many people, especially those from the South, Cantonese speakers, call a bank account a Hu Kou, not a Zhang Hao. When I looked up Hu Kou, it meant something like ID, passports etc?? But people seem to understand me perfectly when I use Hu Kou.

Also, within one person's bank account, you can have multiple accounts or 'suffixes' within it, like one for cheque/daily spending, one for savings, etc. Now how would I call those 'suffixes' within the account? Could I say, in your Hu Kou, there are many different Zhang Hao?

-- Hope you guys can help me out..

I will post some more later in this thread, but I have to go to the dentist and get my wisdom tooth pulled out in like 30 mins...

[skylee]

I think for young boys/girls (say from age 10 to 15), simply calling their full names politely is OK. It would be awkward to call them xiansheng/xiaojie (too young) or xiao pengyou/meimei/didi (too old). But if it is a requirement of your bank/profession that you must address them by their titles, then I guess you should use xiansheng/xiaojie anyway.

For a middle-aged lady, unless you are sure that she is a Mrs, it is always ok to call her xiaojie or nvshi. For older ones (perhaps above 70), I would use nvshi or popo.

Hukou for a bank account is ok. Zhanghu is also ok. I guess zhanghao is account number, right?

I have found this website which you may be useful to you -> 英漢證券期貨及財務用語匯編

And good luck re the tooth thing ...