and on a side note, the Chinese name is for legal names only. If you don’t have one, that part gets left blank
I don’t want to cast aspersions, so I’ll leave it unsaid, but…
“Other”.
They are part of FOS so purely to get my own back, I will escalate.
I had every intention of using the account for all my spending etc. ICICI instead then.
How aren’t BOC or ICICI designed for everyday banking? What else is a personal current account for?
You don’t need to tell me how FOS works.
How did you know I wore a shirt lol… was the same colour as the branch guys hahah
Yeah, I need to do that. RMB transfers would be mega convenient.
There is a certain level of irony, that ICICI have no issue /w me, yet I genuinely have no use case for them.
It worked at work tho, in the canteen, at the vending machine, on the bus, on the train… ICICI.
I mean the only reason I have BOC is for remittance back to China.
You can send funds to people in China via Mastercard on 微信 and 支付宝.
Transferwise or other international money service available.
Spend directly in China from your UK card also. I see no appeal of BOC as a main card. I loose the code key ring all the time.
Do you have a bank account in mainland China? I swear they only even offer the card to those that do, might be why it was rejected.
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I don’t think that’s an option. Internationally issued cards can be used for purchases at merchants, but not for P2P payments. I think you’d also struggle at merchants who are using personal accounts to receive money.
You certainly wouldn’t want to be using a BOC UK card for that either as you’d be stung for international usage fees on both sides.
It’s worth mentioning that BOC don’t want British customers at all, the only reason they open ones occasionally for ‘local’ people is because they have a clear link to China and would struggle finding a legitimate reason to refuse it.
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You will have to stand corrected on that one. That is me sending money to my husbands personal WeChat receiving code.
As you can see payment source is Mastercard.
And another to a local vendor
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Reviving this thread …
Does Bank of China offer free transfers between BOC accounts in different countries? Example, send send from my personal BOC UK account and my personal BOC Australia account. Similar to HSBC Global View And Global Transfers.
Going a bit OT but omg, from your posts, you seem to have accounts in US, UK, China or HK (since you seem to be client of BOC), Australia. Must be fun at tax filing time.
Ha - Sort of but no. I was using AU as an example. Don’t bank with BOC, but if they offer global transfers like HSBC then I may open an account with them.
Now only have accounts in UK, US and Panama. No CN, HK or AU. Who knows in the future 
Travelling to China for a month or so this year.
Genuine question, would there be any benefit to having a BOC account for this purpose?
Paging @NewNewNanoOp
You can get a Unionpay card from MyGuava which might be useful. Opening in BOC London seemed to be a major undertaking and the person who tried it got a hard no.
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Wonder why BOC would reject someone for a regular everyday bank account? Are they restrictive of who can get them?
I’m looking to set up AliPay as per people’s suggestions but it would be good to have more than one option.
You got a link?
Look up ^
(link to relevant post: Bank of China (UK) - #35 by NanoOp)
Just download the MyGuava app. Get the gold unionpay card (free).
Checked with a colleague and he was able to open a BOC account in China with just his passport. That said, his wife is Chinese so could translate for him.
Does seem a bit overkill for a holiday though. MyGuava is way simpler and you’ll have the card in a week or so.
It seems a good idea to have the Union Pay as one method.
Ali and WeChat Pay being the others where you use a normal underlying card?
No one in China uses cards to pay for things and whether you had a Visa Mastercard or UnionPay - you’re not going to be using the physical card, or Apple Pay etc.
Download the Alipay or UnionPay apps and add your own fee-free cards there.