Comments on: Jrnl #2 : On Reverse Karma; Pre-Prep-Preparations

By: betonica

betonica — Mon, 25 May 2009 02:26:18 +0000

I thought it would be too easy: Paypal will allow you to send (and presumably receive) money in Hong Kong Dollars and Singapor Dollars, plus a handful of others. Not, certainly, every currency in the world.

I hope your trip is, indeed, the fantastic experience you’re expecting, and that you figure out the money thing. Good luck!

By: ccerrato

ccerrato — Sun, 24 May 2009 19:02:12 +0000

If you are looking for a credit card to use abroad, Capitol One is, by far, the best. The are the only major credit card that does not charge any surplus fees for using the card abroad.

By: rah_kun

rah_kun — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:12:29 +0000

Two things make my situation particularly difficult – one is that RMB is not an internationally traded currency. Indeed, you’re not even allowed to leave China with it, technically. Thus, even if it were possible to go to, say, an HSBC in France to deposit Euros into my American account (which I don’t think it is), it definitely would not work the same in China.

Non-internationality of the RMB aside, the other thing that’s a big issue are the restrictions on banking in China. I think it was only a year or two ago that select few foreign banks were allowed to do business with Chinese citizens. And that happened only through a number of concessions to Chinese government regulation. The system is starting to open up a bit now, which is to say, it’s starting to mesh with the way that non-Communistic-ish countries do business.

Theoretically, you can take your American ATM card to any functioning ATM and receive the local currency for the conversion fee. I did that in India and Hong Kong two years ago for the fee. Though, recently, you need to watch out because the credit card companies are coming up with all sorts of fun games to squeeze consumers for money in this recession. Recently, in England, we found out all credit card transactions were subject to a 15% fee while abroad. Not to mention that our cards didn’t work everywhere there because Brits use something called a “chip,” which seems far fancier and high tech than our American crud. I haven’t looked into it all that much yet.

By: ccerrato

ccerrato — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:50:11 +0000

By “transaction fee”, I really meant “foreign currency conversion” fee.

By: ccerrato

ccerrato — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:48:27 +0000

When I was in Spain and needed Euros I simply went to a Citibank in Madrid, put my ATM card in the ATM and out came Euros for something like a 3% transaction fee.

Assumedly, the situation could work in reverse. If you deposited RMB into a Citibank account in China and your parents went to a Citibank ATM in the States, assumedly USD would come out for a 3% transaction fee?

There are Citibanks in several cities in China. And I’m sure there are probably other US bank branches as well. Just a thought, but you might want to look into this.