Fuddland

One of the niggling differences in working in China is the way you receive your salary: unlike in the UK, where you simply give your bank’s sort-code and account number to the finance department, in China your company decides on one particular bank to use, and the employees must all open an account with that bank if they want to be paid.

And so I am now a card-carrying customer of the Agricultural Bank of China, famed for the largest bank robbery in the history of the country. Since the four largest banks in China are all state-owned, there seems to be very little to distinguish them, and I’m not entirely sure why my company opted for this bank down the street when there’s a branch of Bank of China in the same building as our office. Perhaps it’s because of the 5% discount account-holders enjoy at the nearby Subway sandwich shop.

#1

martyn | 2009 / 04 / 20 – 15:37

it works this way in the UK too if you work for most banks…

#2

David | 2009 / 04 / 20 – 16:16

Re #1: Serves you right if you work for more than one bank at a time, let alone most of them. ;)

#3

brown | 2009 / 04 / 21 – 03:42

Was opening your account as easy as ABC?

#4

David | 2009 / 04 / 21 – 07:30

Re #3: I think they actually have something along those lines on their cash machines!

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