Opening bank account in China on working visa

Opening my BoC account was like pulling teeth out, I had to go back and forth two or three times. But that was in a small town and none of us knew what we were doing - everyone was nice and enjoyed the novelty though.

A couple of months later I was in the provincial capital Hefei for meetings, and walking past a branch of merchants bank, I dropped in and opened an account in about 5 minutes.

So now I have two accounts BoC for salary and MBoC for my walking around money linked to Wechat and Alipay.

The union pay card is ok in China but isn't much use outside. A lot of shopping destinations will take it eg Harrods and Selfridges (it is in their interests to convenience R2G visitors); but normal shops and services not so much. To get around this you can link your card to Paypal and Applepay. But you are going to want to keep some funds in a western account with a visa or mastercard.

Sending money home requires that you get a verified tax statement to show that you have earned the funds in a legal way and have paid income tax; you will need some help to get this document as there is a bit of running around required.

hope that helps