Interestingly, my recently re-issued China merchants Bank, ATM card does not even print the names of the account holder on them at all anymore.
My friend whose account is already open but card is expiring needs to re-new his card and wondering if he can since he no longer has a residence type of anything in China and not living there.
He might be able to renew without a residence permit, but AFAIK he definitely has to show up in person to do so. Rather foreigner-unfriendly to say the least.
Re - name on card: I think it has always been fairly rare for Chinese banks to bother with printing names on debit cards. My Zhaohang cards certainly never had a name on them. The only bank I know with printed names is Pufa for their premium accounts. Most banks just hand out pre-printed ones. Did Zhaohang print names for a while?
Congratulations on getting money to AliPay! Perhaps China expects the dollar to crash at some point, and lots of foreigners will want to park cash in China, so they're building a wall to prevent the inflow.
Your post reads as if bank employees should be jumping to do what you want. That's probably true for normal customers, but for you there is a force meant to discourage foreigners. I've had the same experience in The Netherlands when turned off my Digital ID. It helped me to emphasize with the employee and to imagine things from their point of view. What would you do if you were a bank employee?
That sounds rather Orwellian. How did you get yours turned off? In the EU apparently it's quite common that banks close bank accounts belonging to dissidents, Nigel Farage being a recent case in point. Did something similar happen to you?
The discrimination in this case is of course purely a question of nationality. We can guess that the government made so many rules that it's simply not worthwhile for banks to bother with - with the results discussed in the above article.
Filing taxes digitally is supported since the 1990s at least. In 2007 DigiD was required instead of your signature. Until 2020 it felt like a natural evolution. Then it was used to enforce CovID measures and I realized how digital ID will reduce freedom.
Turning DigiD off was a button on the website. This does not remove any data, it just means I can't use digital forms anymore, or receive online messages.
I've heard about the bank account closures. I wonder how real it is. Without a bank account you can't work, buy food or pay rent. Farage doesn't look hungry to me.
So you turned off your ID and were unable to maintain a bank account? If you get tired of being a number, at least in theory you can still escape to China where we will still have no such thing ;) But they don't make it easy.
Nigel Farage is hardly the only European who got his accounts closed. Take Martin Sellner for example. He says that he has had over 50 accounts in multiple countries closed.
There are no problems for me, just that things are harder without DigiD, take more time and fail more often. Dutch banks do not use DigiD at all. They require an uploaded photo of your passport. As a side note, Dutch banks provide a digital service called iDIN that you can use to identify to some companies and other government agencies.
You seem to have trouble even with a Chinese family. Moving to China if you don't know any Chinese seems like a long shot :-)
There was a Dutch organization with a closed account too. I read the opinion in their lawsuit and it looked strange, like they did not present a strong case. I do not personally know anyone with bank account issues.
Good to know thank you. I recall some cards of mine had my name, but now I forget which one. I have had Bank of China, Construction and Merchants. I know one of them were printed wit non raised lettering.
i did not have similar issues 10 years ago when i did the same thing in a rural area in southern China, perhaps there is a shortage of labor (like everywhere) and english speaking reps go to the big central location. Also keep in mind Credit Unions might be more friendly than banks.
Interestingly, my recently re-issued China merchants Bank, ATM card does not even print the names of the account holder on them at all anymore.
My friend whose account is already open but card is expiring needs to re-new his card and wondering if he can since he no longer has a residence type of anything in China and not living there.
He might be able to renew without a residence permit, but AFAIK he definitely has to show up in person to do so. Rather foreigner-unfriendly to say the least.
Re - name on card: I think it has always been fairly rare for Chinese banks to bother with printing names on debit cards. My Zhaohang cards certainly never had a name on them. The only bank I know with printed names is Pufa for their premium accounts. Most banks just hand out pre-printed ones. Did Zhaohang print names for a while?
Congratulations on getting money to AliPay! Perhaps China expects the dollar to crash at some point, and lots of foreigners will want to park cash in China, so they're building a wall to prevent the inflow.
Your post reads as if bank employees should be jumping to do what you want. That's probably true for normal customers, but for you there is a force meant to discourage foreigners. I've had the same experience in The Netherlands when turned off my Digital ID. It helped me to emphasize with the employee and to imagine things from their point of view. What would you do if you were a bank employee?
What is your "Digital ID"?!
A central login for Dutch government organizations: https://www.digid.nl/
Used by everything from the tax office, to city council, unemployment administration, ... more than a thousand organizations.
It is now being merged into the European EIDAS (Electronic Identities And Trust Services)
That sounds rather Orwellian. How did you get yours turned off? In the EU apparently it's quite common that banks close bank accounts belonging to dissidents, Nigel Farage being a recent case in point. Did something similar happen to you?
The discrimination in this case is of course purely a question of nationality. We can guess that the government made so many rules that it's simply not worthwhile for banks to bother with - with the results discussed in the above article.
Filing taxes digitally is supported since the 1990s at least. In 2007 DigiD was required instead of your signature. Until 2020 it felt like a natural evolution. Then it was used to enforce CovID measures and I realized how digital ID will reduce freedom.
Turning DigiD off was a button on the website. This does not remove any data, it just means I can't use digital forms anymore, or receive online messages.
I've heard about the bank account closures. I wonder how real it is. Without a bank account you can't work, buy food or pay rent. Farage doesn't look hungry to me.
So you turned off your ID and were unable to maintain a bank account? If you get tired of being a number, at least in theory you can still escape to China where we will still have no such thing ;) But they don't make it easy.
Nigel Farage is hardly the only European who got his accounts closed. Take Martin Sellner for example. He says that he has had over 50 accounts in multiple countries closed.
There are no problems for me, just that things are harder without DigiD, take more time and fail more often. Dutch banks do not use DigiD at all. They require an uploaded photo of your passport. As a side note, Dutch banks provide a digital service called iDIN that you can use to identify to some companies and other government agencies.
You seem to have trouble even with a Chinese family. Moving to China if you don't know any Chinese seems like a long shot :-)
There was a Dutch organization with a closed account too. I read the opinion in their lawsuit and it looked strange, like they did not present a strong case. I do not personally know anyone with bank account issues.
Good to know thank you. I recall some cards of mine had my name, but now I forget which one. I have had Bank of China, Construction and Merchants. I know one of them were printed wit non raised lettering.
i did not have similar issues 10 years ago when i did the same thing in a rural area in southern China, perhaps there is a shortage of labor (like everywhere) and english speaking reps go to the big central location. Also keep in mind Credit Unions might be more friendly than banks.