It is very easy to open a bank account in China. I have lived here for 5 years and have used Bank of China for all my banking needs.

You need your passport and your address your living at to be written in Chinese. Your account will be open the same day and you can obtain a deposit card to withdraw money from that account. You will have to provide a 6 digit number to access the account this choice will be yours so make it one that you easily remember.

There is no internet banking option as it requires a visit to a bank or ATM to withdraw your money. Some ATM's have the facility for you to actually deposit cash into your account. Of course if you maintain a bank in your own country then you can usually access that by way of internet or telephone and deal with payments and transfers.

Always bring at least two bank cards with the visa or mastercard symbol otherwise you could be stuck without money if a card is rejected solely because it is being used in China, and this happens a lot as in the Western world it is considered to be a banking high risk area and you will need to ring your bank to unlock the card before it can be used. Although I have been here for 5 years one of my UK cards gets declined every couple of months or so.

Getting loans for a foreigners are so difficult is it not worth the effort trying. You have to have a permanent residents permit to be even considered and even that will depend on the bank seeing that you have regularly money going into the account over several year period. You may have a great credit record in your own country but that counts for nothing here.

Basically a foreigner can have money wired transferred to the bank but there is a restriction on how much can go through foreign exchange in one year. That is coming in and transfer out of China. Currently that is $50,000 US dollars and one year starts at the 1st January each year.

Bringing cash in is OK but you need to be sure that every note is perfect and any with the slightest tear or a pen mark on them is likely to be rejected.

Willy
Zhongshan