Banks in China

So many big banks in China in some places it seems like one on every corner. Any bank that I used had a security officer and one or two staff members out the front. Mostly the member at the front did speak English and they were there to direct people to which teller or form that they needed.

Warren and I had both kept our bank accounts open when we left as we always intended going back and thought that being able to put money into an account there rather than carrying a large amount of money would be a good idea. Well, yes we returned but we didnt use them so one day we went into the bank to close the accounts and of course withdraw the money that we had in there.

Armed with our bank cards and passport we head to the bank. We were given a slip with a number and then it was sit and wait. There were four rows of seats, several people were already sitting. Five tellers are working and above the tellers is a number  that that they are dealing with at the time.We only have nine numbers in front of us, five tellers, nine numbers, no time at all. Twenty minuets went by and only two people had left, hummm not going to be as quick as we thought.

After an hour we are at the front, we decided to go separately.I could hear Warren talking to his teller but mine didnt speak English or if she did, not to me.  Our accounts had been frozen because they hadn't been used for over twelve months so they had to be reactivated, so that meant two or three pieces of paper. Then our passports that had had to be photocopied did not match the passports that we had opened the accounts with which meant more paperwork. An hour at the front of the tellers and finally we were done with 360 RMB each in our hot little hands.

Those poor tellers, I felt guilty, I think that they filled out a dozen or more forms, I know that I had to enter my number around eight to ten times. I am sure they were glad to see the back of us.

At each tellers cubicle there is a press button with three buttons labelled in both English and Chinese, labelled Satisfactory, average or unsatisfactory  I would have liked to hit excellent but had to be happy with Satisfactory. All that paperwork!