Transfering millions of dollars

[credzba]

I appreciate the replies very much, and am not being a smart ass here at all, but I guess I'm thick as a brick. Am I right that two of you are saying "send it in RMB" while Randy is saying "send it in dollars."

 

Again, I am not being a smart aleck...currency discussions make my eyes glaze over...I'm just not sure what the answer should be when the person at B of A asks "do you want it sent in dollars or RMB?"

 

I have answered "dollars" in the past, but have no idea if that's the best way to go in terms of getting the best deal.

 

If someone could help my thick brain, I'd really appreciate it. I'm about to send a lot of money (though less than 50K), so I want to make sure I get the best deal.

 

Thanks again!

Summary:

It doesn't matter.

You will probably get more yuan / us$ if you convert it in China, but the difference is small.

In China each person can only convert 50,000 us$ per year.

There is no limit to the amount converted in America.

Detail:

Just now I looked, the us$ to yuan exchange rate in america is 6.1376. (Sheesh 6 years about it was almost 8 !! )

I can't see the rate in China, but my experience is it is probably 6.2 ish ..

so, using these numbers for each dollar you have converted to yuan in America you will get 6.1376 yuan.

If you have that dollar sent as US$ to china and convert it there you will get 6.2 (or whatever).

Also, there are usually conversion fees in America, and there are not conversion fees in China.

 

As you can see though, it isn't a HUGE difference which ever way you choose.

As I stated earlier though. In China each person can only convert 50,000 USD per year.

Unless you know lots of people willing to help you, this may be the reason to convert in USA.

 

as for the varied advice ...

Part of it comes from the destination of the funds.

Tsap was sending the funds directly to his sweethearts hands. If he sent her US$, she would have to deal with converting them before they would be any use.. furthermore, the western union store in China might not have HAD the US$ laying around to give her, but they certainly had yuan .. for Tsap conversion in America was reasonable.

 

Myself and some of the others were sending to a bank account in China.

The accounts (usually) are dual denomination accounts. That means your bank book will show X$ in US, and Y$ in yuan. They are maintained separately.

If you send US$ the X goes up, if you send RMB the Y goes up.

A person in China can walk into the bank, present the bank book, and ask to convert US$ to yuan, or yuan to US$ and all it does is change the 2 columns in the bank book.

Again, each person has a limit of 50,000 US$ per year. (there's some exceptions but lets not go into it).

 

 

Hope that helps

Edited July 23, 2013 by credzba (see edit history)

[Randy W]

The "Western Union Store" in China IS a bank - either the China Postal Savings Bank or the Agricultural Bank of China. I can almost guarantee that you won't see any American currency at either of those places, and that you WILL walk out with RMB. Make your choices and grease the skids (find out for yourself what works and what doesn't) - you can reverse and re-do the transaction if you need to. The exchange rate here is now 6.172CNY for 1USD - at credzba's exchange rate of 6.1376, that's a difference of 0.6%

[tsap seui]

Yes - my understanding is that the conversion WILL be cheaper (a better exchange rate) if you let it occur in China. It has ALWAYS been for us, including Western Union transfers.

 

If you want to watch the conversion take place, simply ask the clerk to enter the figures on the desk calculator. Dollars go in, RMB comes out. Nobody has any dollars around here, except for a couple that Jiaying's held on to.

 

The China Postal Savings (a bank) is actually separate from the China Post. If you send in dollars, the receiving bank will hold it in a dollar-denominated account until you get them to whip out the calculator and convert it to RMB - no problem.

 

If you send in RMB, that calculator is whipped out right there in front of you at the sending end. Not a huge difference, by any means.

 

Your choice.

 

I saw that my father in law got a lower exchange rate at China Postal when he took out my "usually" WU "exchanged" and sent money in US dollars and then exchanged the US dollars later at China Postal. Only a few dollars less than if he had let me send it in local currency in the first place. No big deal, but them Chinese are penny pinchers. He won't do that one again. Somebody is gonna get a few pesos for exchanging the money. Our experience is WU took out less of a cut on the exchange rate than China Postal, then again, I just paid $27 to WU for sending $7,000 birthday dollars. Their rate better be better.

 

Now, for the real birthday gift, I'm going to our local yokel Hometown Bank to pay off the note due on Wenyan's investment property. The 3 houses and 8 townhouses will be 100% free and clear in her name now. I don't need nuthin' in my name anymore..."all I wanna do is bang on my drum all day"

 

Happy birthday lil' rabbit

 

tsap seui

Edited July 23, 2013 by tsap seui (see edit history)

[Randy W]

The "Western Union Store" in China IS a bank - either the China Postal Savings Bank or the Agricultural Bank of China. I can almost guarantee that you won't see any American currency at either of those places, and that you WILL walk out with RMB. Make your choices and grease the skids (find out for yourself what works and what doesn't) - you can reverse and re-do the transaction if you need to. The exchange rate here is now 6.172CNY for 1USD - at credzba's exchange rate of 6.1376, that's a difference of 0.6%

[tsap seui]

The "Western Union Store" in China IS a bank - either the China Postal Savings Bank or the Agricultural Bank of China. I can almost guarantee that you won't see any American currency at either of those places, and that you WILL walk out with RMB. Make your choices and grease the skids (find out for yourself what works and what doesn't) - you can reverse and re-do the transaction if you need to. The exchange rate here is now 6.172CNY for 1USD - at credzba's exchange rate of 6.1376, that's a difference of 0.6%

That's good Randy. I can only post what we saw in real life with my father in law's transaction, brother. YOUR internet search and figures milage may vary. And that's okay...I hope.

 

tsap seui

[Randy W]

 

The "Western Union Store" in China IS a bank - either the China Postal Savings Bank or the Agricultural Bank of China. I can almost guarantee that you won't see any American currency at either of those places, and that you WILL walk out with RMB. Make your choices and grease the skids (find out for yourself what works and what doesn't) - you can reverse and re-do the transaction if you need to. The exchange rate here is now 6.172CNY for 1USD - at credzba's exchange rate of 6.1376, that's a difference of 0.6%

That's good Randy. I can only post what we saw in real life with my father in law's transaction, brother. YOUR internet search and figures milage may vary. And that's okay...I hope.

 

tsap seui

 

 

I hope so, too!

[Randy W]

Another couple of things to be aware of - the "city" you specify when you initiate the transfer isn't necessarily the city where they pick it up - they can pick it up anywhere the receiving bank has a branch. We specify the CCB bank in Nanning, since it has a "SWIFT" code, but pick it up here in Yulin. Same with Western Union transfers - I believe they can pick it up just about anywhere with the right identification (Chinese ID and Money Transfer Code).

 

I see you're transferring through Bank of America - but for Western Union, the fees are MUCH lower if you take cash in person to a Western Union transfer agent.

 

I've never been on the receiving end of a Western Union transfer, although I sent more than a few dollar wires that way from the states. I know that for the bank transfers, we have to go to the only CCB bank location which has a foreign exchange department. Perhaps that's also the difference between tsap's Western Union experience and ours - that they would need to go to a "foreign exchange" location when receiving dollars. Don't know - I just know we've never had issues with sending dollars.

 

Like I said, you just have to grease the skids and figure out what works best for you.

[canrun]

Thanks, all. I'm gonna answer "dollars" and hopefully never contemplate the concept of currency fluctuations ever again!

[canrun]

Just a quick update: yes, at Bank of America one has the option to send the wire transfer in the local currency to most countries...China, perhaps not surprisingly, not being among them! So, my decision was pretty easy.

[tsap seui]

Well great, ya got something that works for ya!! And that is what is important.

 

When my wife went to transact the $7,000 I just sent her by W/U she asked the W/U lady she has become friends with if it mattered if I sent the money to be received in local currency or US dollars? The lady told her "no" that the exchange rate would be the same either way I sent it. I had hopes that Randy's way would net a few more dollars.

 

In August I'll be sending Wenyan another $7,000usd (this will put us already at the $50,000 legal limit for 2013). I'm gonna make two different phone calls and send half of it to it to be received in local currency, then on another phone call ask for the other half to be received in usd. I'll find out for sure if it makes any difference on what I tell Western Union....and at that particular China Postal branch in that particular Chinese city.

 

I thank Randy for telling us his particular story. It may have and I hope to see soon if it, made a difference for us. I don't have any large banks around us like BOA or Citi bank, etc and I like my local yokel bank. They have helped my wife to quickly establish a very nice credit rating and unless another way greatly improves what she can put into her bank on our usd to China I'm not gonna bother to drive to a couple of hours to drive to a larger city to set up an account in America. W/U has just been too easy for both of us, whatever the exchange rate.

 

tsap seui

[Fu Lai]

My gawd, so much money. Each transfer is more than the average Chinese person makes in a year!

 

... When my wife went to transact the $7,000 I just sent her... In August I'll be sending Wenyan another $7,000usd ...

[tsap seui]

I hear ya Fu Lai. When I met Wenyan she was working as a nurse in a small Chinese style medical practice, making a wopping $400 a month, or some such figure. I feel for the average Chinese worker. I am a blue collar guy from the word go and after getting off drugs and alcohol in 1985 was very fortunate in my chase of the American dream as an entrepreneur. Not wealthy by any means, just very comfortable with life. America, and hard physical work was very good to me. Now I get great satisfaction helping my wife to live her dreams.

 

The world, China in particular right now is wide open. Everyone can reach out for their dream. As a hard core drug addict who went from living on the occasional park bench in downtown DC to living in my pickemup truck for months at a time, feeling sorry for myself, and thinkin' I had been dissed in life, if I could build something from scratch into a success, so can anyone else.Ya just have to break the chains that hold ya back, find a passon, make a plan, and work the hell out of it. Everyone has the opportunity to find a niche in life, find a need others have and fill that need. Take a job from just being a job and turn it into being fun, something you wake up early and happy to the new day.

 

tsap seui

[Steve in USA]

I like your style, Tsap. :-)

[tsap seui]

Thanks Steve...in a former industry I sat through and gave, more motivational talks than I can remember....LOL

 

Speaking of doing a kip out of the gutter and making something out of yore life....I owe it all to getting of drugs and alke-hol back on June 30 1985. Shucks, life has been so busy lately, I dern near forgot my "anniversary"....shucks, I've got, what? 12 years of sobriety or something. LOL

 

How's your immigration journey going, man?

 

 

tsap seui

[Steve in USA]

Thanks Steve...in a former industry I sat through and gave, more motivational talks than I can remember....LOL

 

Speaking of doing a kip out of the gutter and making something out of yore life....I owe it all to getting of drugs and alke-hol back on June 30 1985. Shucks, life has been so busy lately, I dern near forgot my "anniversary"....shucks, I've got, what? 12 years of sobriety or something. LOL

 

How's your immigration journey going, man?

 

 

tsap seui

Those were good words. Words to live by. My sobriety came on September 13, 2000. Stumbled once, but remembered I will always be an alcoholic.

 

Originally I came here on CFL a little over a years ago, a bit dejected about a bu hao gold digger from Shenyang that discarded me. In the past year, I have spent about 5 months in China on and off. Met lots of ladies in and around Zhuhai. By chance, last December I met Jing on QQ. She lives in Ningbo, and on my last trip to China in March, on her own she bought an airline ticket and flew down to meet and spend some time with me in Zhuhai for a week. It took me the entire week to give her the cost of the tickets and keep it. That cured me of any thoughts she was trying to scam me.

 

We really hit it off well. I am 56 years old, single, contract R&D engineer for a US computer company working with our manufacturing partners in China. She is 47, divorced and an engineer working in the IT department at a large steel company in Ningbo. She has a 22 year old daughter in her final year of university. There was a wonderful chemisty between us, and we are just starting our plans to be together. Unfortuneately, I was layed off work a month ago, so very long term plans are on hold. I will be flying to Shanghai Pudong in late September to be with her in Ningbo during Mid-Autumn festival. She will be having some minor surgery and a hospital stay during that time off and I wish to take care of her during recovery. We still Facetime instant message and video 3 times a day, every day.

 

We are both talking of marriage. Where we end up together is still unknown. I have a good nest egg, but need to take of my mom. Jing has owns her condo, and just bought another with a ocean view for us to retire to. When our plans become a little clearer, expect me to be asking alot of questions here. This site has so much experience I wish to tap. Good people here too.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Steve in USA (see edit history)