Which bank account in China can I open that will give me a visa debit card?
July 1, 2011 9:49 PM   Subscribe

Which bank account in China can I open that will give me a visa debit card?

I already have ICBC, and it has unionpay debit card, and it seems like visa CREDIT card. I want a Visa debit card.

So which bank offers Visa debit cards in China?

(I'm an American living in China on a student visa)
posted by Patrick Leo to Work & Money (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Have you looked through the discussions on the subject on the expat forums? Example 1 Example 2
posted by Busy Old Fool at 12:42 AM on July 2, 2011


Best answer: Minsheng Bank offers an International card which carries the Visa logo and can be used as a debit card.
posted by essexjan at 8:00 AM on July 2, 2011


tried this for almost two years with no luck. it's not that there aren't banks that give visa debit cards, they just don't give them to 外国人. Find an optimal way to send money to a US/foreign account and use the foreign card. My wife an I wound up just getting a Filipino bank's visa card to buy plane tickets & such. Depending on where you're based, opening an HSBC or Standard Chartered account in Hong Kong might be an option - though you'll run into issues if you want to bring over a lot of RMB (i.e., max 20k RMB through the border per go).
posted by trinarian at 12:38 AM on July 5, 2011


edit: Citi is the only one that let's you open an RMB account without a Hong Kong ID card, IIRC.
posted by trinarian at 12:40 AM on July 5, 2011


one more idea - smaller banks break rules more. For instance, Shanghai Pudong Bank let my friend get an instant replacement for a debit card while Bank of China, Merchant's, and all the other biggies stick to the rules and will make you wait the full week before you can access your money again (even if you tell them you're flying out tomorrow and need your money by ____ - I've tried everything). If it's policy, as I was told, find a bank under less scrutiny and a little more happy to have your business.
posted by trinarian at 12:45 AM on July 5, 2011


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