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.