Most Chinese banks I've been to usually have someone that speaks English. I've used Citic, ICBC, and Bank of China without any problems, other than queuing.

For your purposes, though, you might want to check out Standard Bank. They can give you an international credit card. So can Lloyds TSB, but they're more of a pain in the a$$ to open an account with.

I haven't had any personal experience with HSBC, but my impression is that tend to be heavy in the fee department.

CMB sucks if you have a Mac as their internet banking only works for PCs. And even if you can get it, it's only in Chinese.

I have just opened an account at the Bank of China. Good experience around except for the queuing for long periods of time.

International funds transfer went through overnight, account accepts CNY and many foriegn currencies, currency exchange took 5 minutes,local debit card with Union Pay access.

Their internet is in english and has some glitches. Found out eventually that if you load it in "InPrivate Browsing" on IE8 all the problems go away. Limited online bill pay facilites are available along with domestic and international transfers.

The Bank is an agent for China Unicom so I can also pay my home phone, internet and my wifes mobile all from the bank or the internet.

Like you I read many horror stories before comming to China. I have gotta say, that has not been my experience....Yet...

I just went over to check and their online banking in English sucks. It is extremely basic compared with, say, ICBC.

Also, the China Merchants Bank online banking English version only supports ATM / debit cards and does not support credit cards.

False. The English version of the Merchants Bank credit card online banking is totally non-functional at this point. It never has worked. If you call the number on the back of your card they will explain it to you; they are still working on it and expect it to be up and running maybe this year.

What else do I expect to find?

1. Ability to transfer funds between banks;
2. Ability to perform wire transfers;
3. Ability to buy / sell foreign currency to pay my credit card statement;
4. Ability to buy / sell government bonds;
5. Ability to buy / sell mutual funds;
6. Ability to completely manage my credit cards;
7. Ability to pay utility and telephone bills;
8. Ability to open new Cd accounts and close any other accounts I may wish to close;
9. Quite a few other things that don't come to mind now, but which I may wish to do.

All this and more can be done -- in English -- with ICBC's online banking function.

Yes, you can do all this and more with an ordinary savings account. The only exception would be buying US$ to pay of your foreign currency credit card debt if you didn't also have their credit card.

ICBC has the most comprehensive English version online banking I have found in China. Not saying ICBC is the best bank, but their online banking is pretty darned good.

I took the advice from this thread and opened an ICBC account. So far, I haven't had any problems, although I haven't tried to do anything too complicated.

so the advice about ICBC is still applicable after all these years?

I'm mostly interested in being able to use online banking on my mac

I think ICBC and HSBC are the best option for this.

back in 2008/9, neither the ICBC nor BoC internet stuff could be set up and made to work on my Mac

highly doubt that's changed since, but haven't tried either

friend swears by the CMB online system - thinks it works great for him. he's also completely fluent in Chinese and has a computer degree ....