Fuddland

Today I needed to transfer some of my hard-earned cash to my UK bank account via the Bank of China, so I thought I’d list what information one needs to provide in order to fill out their form, for anyone else who might be searching for help beforehand:

• A photocopy of your passport

• Your bank’s registered address

• Your bank’s SWIFT/BIC [Bank Identifier Code] number [this is a unique code of the form XXXX XX99 assigned to each bank for easy identification], which you write instead of your bank’s usual name on the form

• Your IBAN [International Bank Account Number, which should by EU law appear somewhere on your statement]

Make sure you leave enough money in your pocket to pay the transfer fee — how much you will be charged depends on how much you are transferring, but it can run in a few hundred yuan for transfers of a couple of hundred pounds.