Just changed RMB

Went to the HSBC counter here in Tsuen Wan. The rate I got was 117.150.

According to google, the spot rate today is 116.695734.

So I paid about 4/10ths of a percent

Buying RMB

There's some things you should know if you are trying to buy RMB in Hong Kong.

Generally, you can only buy RMB with HKD. Any other currency you want to use to buy RMB must be converted to HKD first.

Then, there's a daily purchase limit of 20k RMB per day for HSBC (and BOC HK, and probably all other banks). Yes, there are restrictions even though the RMB account does not reside in China.

The rate you get if you buy RMB at HSBC isn't as good as the street money changers. The difference is negligble though - only a .1% difference last I checked (.874 from HSBC vs .875 from money changer). In total, it's a .6% charge from HSBC vs a .5% charge from street money changer compared to spot rate.

However, the main benefit to using a money changer is that they don't care about your identity, so you can change as much as you want at a time (provided they have the cash). This means you will be carrying cash though, so depending on your situation it may not be worth it.

Here are the 'indicative rates' from HSBC for today 3/15/10:

1 USD = 7.745993385 HKD from USD to HKD

1 CNY = 1.144 HKD from HKD to RMB (You get 874 RMB if you exchange 1000 HKD)

Here are the spot rates according to google for today 3/15/10:

1 USD = 7.75819265 HKD

1 RMB = 1.13651316 HKD (You get 875 RMB if you exchange 1000 HKD)

Best way to move money from US to HK

There's a couple of ways to move money around, but some are better than others.

From doing some internet research and some of my own investigation, here's the best way to do it if you use HSBC.

First, for your local Hong Kong HSBC account, be sure to setup a USD denominated account. You will transfer money to this USD account first. There should not be any charge for this service (if you transfer 10k from your US HSBC account, 10k will appear in your HK HSBC account). I transferred money using the Global View feature of my online account.

Now, if you were to try to do a transfer from your US HSBC account into your HK HSBC account directly from USD to HKD in one shot (transfer initiated from your US based online account), the charge will be about 1% over the current spot rate.

If you instead transfer from your US HSBC account to your HK HSBC account as USD first, then exchange from USD to HKD locally (using your HK based online account), the charge is about .15% over the current spot rate.

PCCW Blackberry Enterprise Service now charging for GPRS data

Be sure to get the 18hkd/month 30mb plan for local gprs data if you use Google Maps or any other 3rd party application that uses data, as grps data is now being billed. This was not the case previously.

There is no such plan for non-local data, so if you are overseas try to restrict your usage to plain blackberry browser usage.

Kodak Fotomax to print and scan documents

Lots of people in Hong Kong don't have a printer/scanner. I sure don't. So when HSBC emailed me some documents to sign and email back, I had to find a place to do it.

Luckily, my local Kodak Fotomax center which is usually a place to get photos developed can also print and scan documents off a thumb drive.

The cost is modest - $8 HKD per document to print (no minimum), and $10 HKD per document to scan, minimum of 3.

The scanned documents get burned onto a CD, which explains the minimum charge... I asked if they could just put the scanned docs onto my thumbdrive, but the staff said that they normally burned the scans onto CD.

Everbank sucks

I thought they were the solution to my overseas banking problem... but they aren't.

I am in the process of closing my Everbank because:

They've been silently charging me USD $9/month on my yield pledge money market because they changed their balance requirements back in June '09. Gee, it would have been nice to get notified, don't you think?

They also now charge for online bill pay if your checking balance is below USD $5000. Gee, when did this start happening?

Direct deposit counts for nothing? No problem.... I'm shutting it down and direct depositing with my HSBC account. This will also allow me to build an income history for when I want to take a mortgage out here in Hong Kong.

Details on HSBC Premier Credit Card and ATM (Debit) Card

Direct from my US Relationship Manager:

The Premier World Mastercard credit card has a 0% foreign transaction fee, 0% interest on purchases for the first year until December 2nd of 2010 and almost 20% interest on cash advances (not recommended of course since all credit cards have a high APY when you do a cash advance).

The debit card will not incur a foreign transaction fee when you withdraw money from other banks internationally since it is a Premier card but the other banks will charge you a per withdrawal fee. If you withdraw from HSBC HK, you will not incur any fees whatsoever.

Our Premier Support team stated that Hang Seng may not be reimbursed.

EMS SpeedPost = USPS Express Mail International

For people sending mail to the US via Hong Kong's EMS SpeedPost, the tracking number given is usable at the usps.com (US Postal Service) website once the package arrives in the US.

Of course, the Item No is trackable at the hongkongpost.com website.

Once your package arrives in the US, you can track it using the hongkongpost.com website or the usps.com website. The usps.com website will provide more info however.

For my package, USPS attempted a Saturday delivery to the title company which of course was unsuccessful. Additionally, a delivery notice wasn't left, so the title company had no reference no. to use to track the delivery attempt. I had to keep tracking the usps.com website and notify the title company that the delivery was unsuccessful, at which point someone from the title company went to their local post office to pickup the package. They had to email usps.com to get the reference no first.

Notes on getting documents Notarized in Hong Kong

I got my HSBC closing docs a week ago and had to get a few of the docs notarized. Here are some of the things you should know.

1) You should first make an appointment to get your docs notarized at the US Consulate. You actually can walk in without an appointment (I had to do this since one of my docs wasn't marked properly so I had to go back for a walk in). They have a lunch break from 12-130PM so they'll make you wait outside until 130PM, then they give you a plastic placard to show that you are a walk-in.

2) It costs $30 USD for the first notarized document, $20 for each document thereafter.

3) Go through all your docs to make sure you know what you need to get notarized. Two of my docs had yellow stickies signifying that I had to get them notarized. But as I was signing and initial'ing the rest of my docs at the post office, I found one additional document that wasn't stickied at all. I ended up having to go back to the US Consulate the same day, without an appointment to get it signed. This added 2 hours to my ordeal.

4) While HSBC doesn't require your last two years tax returns, one of the forms they'll have you sign is a release giving them permission to get tax return transcripts direct from the US Government. I guess this is actually better for them as there's no opportunity to forge documents.

5) I paid HKD 127 to send the closing documents back to San Francisco by SpeedPost. They say it takes 3 days to get delivered, but in actuality, it takes 3 days to get back to the US and pass customs. From there it gets delivered to the local post office and delivered. If you take the breezeway to the Central Post Office, you'll need to go down one flight of stairs to send the parcel via SpeedPost as those are sent out from the ground floor.