Rant 826 / Money Remittance

:O

This is indeed pretty awesome.











This blog's readership seems to be hovering at around 80-99 now. Half of the Google search terms yesterday were still related to Witcher 2 porn though.

I am amused.













Dammit! Wiring money to China is so complicated. Ok, it's not actually that complicated, but it's just more complicated than what it takes to wire money locally.

First, the Bank of China doesn't have internet banking. (EDIT: Oh wait it does. Damn!)

Second, the remittance form is very detailed, to the point where I need the person's IC (aka ID aka social security) number in addition to the name, bank branch name and bank account number.

At least it also means it's very secured.

Third, it costs S$30 to correct the form if any mistake is made when filling in the form and after it has been submitted.

Fourth, if only the account number is wrong and the rest are correct, the mistake may only be discovered after the money has been converted to RMB, which means it will be converted back to the original currency before they notify us of this mistake.

Since the USD has been dropping constantly in recent months, it can only mean I'll definitely lose money for nothing in the process. In case you aren't aware of this, the BoC converts any currency to USD before converting it to RMB.

Fifth, the government of China limits the amount of RMB each Chinese citizen can receive to 50k USD worth of RMB per year. That may not be a problem for most people, but it means that anyone doing business with Chinese citizens will have to keep in mind how much money they have remitted to each person in China each year, or they'll get either the third or something similar to the fourth problem.

I don't know which because we have never forgotten.

And this is just about remitting money to the PRC.

Making money is never easy.





Anyway the other day when I was there to make some changes to some remittance forms ($60 gone for nothing, sad), there was about a dozen Chinese citizens there doing some paperwork.

I believe they were opening bank accounts in order to receive their wages in the future since the teller was giving out booklets to each of them that were in very good condition.

Then one of them wanted to convert his money right there. Didn't understand which currency he wanted to buy (RMB or SGD?) due to their strong accents which I'm not familiar with but damn, he was going to change currency in a bank!

Banks generally have poorer exchange rates compared to money changers outside.

We do it only because we prefer the security and the lack of any possible fuss. But for small amounts for personal use, we avoid it.

I guess he probably came from some town/village where the only money changers are the banks.