Today I decided to transfer my savings from my payroll account which is the Bank of China to another bank. I chose another Chinese bank. I chose Industrial and Commercial Bank of China ICBC. I tried to access their website yesterday to check what are the requirements needed for a foreigner to open an account with them. I did this because I want to do everything in one visit and not having to come back for lacking documentations. Unfortunately their website did not indicate the requirements. I tried to phone their hotline. After the usual machine recording speech (in chinese of course) I was greeted by a lady on the line obviously with a “chinglish” accent. I inquired on the process of account opening and the minimum balance to maintain the account. She kept on asking me for what sort of like a number. I repeatedly said account opening. “I want to open an account with ICBC.” Finally after almost a minute of trying to repeat what I said. She gave up and said “wait a moment”. Again I was placed on hold with a chinese song on the background. I was almost tempted to just hang up. Suddenly another lady with still a “chinglish” accent came to the rescue. Finally she understood what I wanted to know, I felt relieved for a while. She talks really fast, now I’m having a hard time trying to catch up with what she is saying. I only understood, “only credit card”. Then I realized that maybe the hotline I called was only for credit card queries. She then gave me another number to call. I just pretended to take down the number she dictated so not to hurt her feelings. I don’t want to go through such long conversation and end up with nothing. I just decided to just walk in the bank with all my documents ready.
Sept 18
Lunch time
Armed with all my documents, I went to ICBC branch near my work place. I brought my passport, my working permit and some ID’s back home. I just walked in an inquired about where to open an account, I made sure I have enough time before going back to work. I don’t want to stay in the bank too long and be late in going back to work. A chinese lady assisted me and handed over a sheet of paper for me to fill up. I just filled up what I understood. Name, Address, Telephone number and ID number. I did not bother filling the other informations, which I don’t understand. I handed it over to her, she just examined it and asked me to affix my signature at the bottom. She got a copy of my passport, and voila handed me an ATM card. She just made me do the usual PIN number of the ATM card and I am ready to go. The process was less than 5 minutes. I am done.
She just asked me for 25rmb for the payment of the ATM card. It’s my first time to encounter a bank that requires a payment for ATM card upon account opening.
(Most Chinese if not all Chinese ATM card doesn’t display your name in the card)
My thoughts:
I was surprised on how easy to open an account with ICBC, considering that they are a big financial institution in China. I can’t help but compare on the tedious requirements and the bloody account opening process we have back home.
Let me share with you the thing that I do best aside from learning all the investment options and some basics of the stock and financial markets.
The account opening. We would require at least 2 ID’s, passport and driver’s license is favorable. It is a must to have 2 identifications. I had some experiences of having to decline an account opening due to lack of acceptable identifications. Depending of the type of account a customer wishes to open, we do have other major documents needed. For example for some accounts we need to require a utility bill (credit card bill, a phone bill or any utility bill under the customer’s name). We also do the “call back”, meaning call the customer’s telephone number using a recorded line to ensure the validity of the customer’s identity and contact details. And the most important point prior to accepting an account opening is to check the customer’s identity against a data base we call the “negative file”. This file contains the names of people with pending court cases and unpaid balances with other financial institutions. Imagine the hassle if you have a very common Filipino name, like Jose Ruiz, there would be hundreds of matches. If this case happens then we would require an “affidavit of denial” duly notarized by a lawyer, denying that the customer is not the same person who appeared in the negative file.
Other important things we need to obtain from customer is what we call the KYC or “know your customer”. As the person responsible for opening the account, I should know the ff informations:
Source of wealth
Occupation
Nature of Business
No. of years in the Business
I need to know all these detailed information because we have a thing called AMLA or the Anti Money Laundering Act. As they say Philippines is one of the haven for money launderers worldwide. It would trigger a suspicious thought if someone unemployed would have $ 40,000.
With this I need to inquire the ff informations:
Purpose of account opening:
Are there expected incoming remittances from other countries
Is the account going to be cash intensive
Expected no. of transactions in a month.
Expected no of transactions in a month is a very important information. If the customer’s purpose for opening an account is for “savings” then after a month there were several deposits and withdrawals, this would raise a red flag for AMLA.
Being a banker is not an easy job. Account opening is just one of the many responsibilities of a person working in a bank. That is why I am just amazed on how fast and lenient Chinese people are when in comes to banking matters.
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