Even sending a minimal amount will cost you about $25 in fees on this side plus whatever your bank(s) in Canada charge.

Cheapest option is to buy a cashier's check (demand draft) in C$ from Bank of China and then send that back home for deposit into your bank account. Total cost including postage is about 70 RMB.

You take your RMB or US$ into Bank of China and tell them you want to buy a demand draft (hui piao). You tell them who to make the draft payable to and what currency and the amount.

They issue you the draft (check) and you send it to your bank for deposit. Fee is 50 RMB.

Not sure what you mean by time limit.

It takes about 20 minutes for the Bank of China clerk to issue the draft. You need to deposit the draft or cash it within one year.

The limit would apply, but what you can do is buy $500 today, tomorrow and the next day and let the US$ sit in your account. Then go in the next day and with that money buy a $1500 draft.

Ok, let's say you've got $10,000 and you want to get that money back home. I see three ways:

1. Stuff the cash in your pockets and fly home with it.

Factoring in airfare, expenses and lost time, this might not be the best way.

2. Wire it to your bank back home. This can take two or three days for the money to arrive and will cost you at least 500 RMB.

3. Buy a demand draft for $10,000 at Bank of China. A demand draft is nothing other than a cashier's check in the currency of your choice. If, for example, the money's ultimate destination is the US, then you get a demand draft in US$ payable on Bank of China's New York Branch.

You mail that demand draft (aka cashier's check / aka check) to your bank and it is deposited into your account. The only fees you pay are about 100 RMB to Bank of China to buy the check and postage -- about 20 RMB -- to mail it home to your bank. The downside is it takes a week or two to get there.

Now, what can make the demand draft extremely attractive -- and much better than a wire in every aspect -- is if your bank has a feature called "Deposit@Home" or something similar. My bank in the US has that and all I do is buy the check at Bank of China, hook up my scanner to my PC, endorse the check, log onto my bank's online banking platform and go through the bank's 5-minute process which involves scanning the check. Immediately the funds are sitting in my bank account ready to spend.

You then save the check for 30 days in case there are problems and after 30 days you destroy the check.

I have done this dozens of times and for about 100 RMB you can move $10,000 into your US bank account in under 10 minutes.

It can go anywhere you'd like.

When you purchase the check in addition to the amount and currency, Bank of China will ask you who to make it payable to. You can tell them either to make you the payee or anybody else that you wish.

If using the mail, you mail the draft to the payee. However, if you are using the Deposit@Home function only the payee can use it to deposit the check into their account.

For example, if I am the payee (Thankyouverymuch!!), I can take the draft, endorse it and then use my computer and scanner to have the check deposited into my account using Deposit@Home or some similar service. If I am the payee, you cannot deposit the check into your own account.

Not demand deposit. It's a demand draft. In Chinese they are called "hui piao".

If they do not understand, get the standard wire transfer form and look at the very top. One or two lines down there will be a row of check boxes for the type of remittance you want to send. One is labeled "T/T" for a normal wire transfer and another is "D/D" for demand draft.

I use China Construction Bank.

For domestic money transfer, NP.

But don't bother to exchange there. They have this policy of 5000 RMB per day.. So if u want to leave the country for a vaca, better to take ur money out in cash RMB and exchange elsewhere into USD. Unless u feel like going in there every day for a fkn week or more to exchange their under their pissant limit.

Oh this is a US bank only thing. Glad you clarified that gdbill.

What is so special about the US banks?

Is it possible to get a demand draft in RMB and deposit that into an american bank account? If so is there a limit to the amount of RMB you can get a demand draft for? Also, can you buy the demand draft in US dollars if your chinese bank account only contains RMB or do you have to exchange the currency 500 dollars at a time? If you are a customer with Bank of China can they take the money directly out of your account or do you have to provide them with cash?

Or he can take a Chinese person with him to exchange RMB to USD. Chinese people aren't subject to the same restrictions.

I usually do this myself, it must be quite obvious to the tellers that the Chinese person is my stand-in but there's never been any problem.

the demand draft sounds great !
do ICBC do this ?

Yes, ICBC can. The only two banks that I know of that offer demand drafts are Bank of China and ICBC. The fees are just about the same with eachbank, but what makes ICBC slightly less attractive is that you must go to their main office in Fu Xing Men to buy them. With Bank of China you can go to most of the major branches.

Really? I'm kind of surprised to hear that.

It's useful intel to know they CAN track it, though, and in real time apparently.

Just means you need to plan ahead a little, I guess. And know more than one Chinese person if you want to exchange lots of $$$...shouldn't be a problem with 1.3billion of them!

1. No Bank in CHINA can issue a DEMAND DRAFT in RMB and payable overseas ( say USA / UK etc.)

2. Banks in CHINA may issue a " COC " ( Cashier's order cheque)
or a Bank's Payment Order ( PO ) in RMB but it will be drawn on themselves i.e. PAYABLE in CHINA.

3. What will happen if you deposit this RMB PaymentOrder in your account in an OVERSEAS Bank ( say USA ) ? Most probably, the Bank will not be able to accept it even under " Bills for collection" ( since RMB is not freely convertible currency )

4. A DD ( Demand Draft ) in RMB payable OVERSEAS CAN NOT BE CREATED / ISSUED by any CHINESE BANK. In fact, NO BANK ( anywhere) can issue a DEMAND DRAFT in RMB !

True.

I might add that a check can be issued which is payable in Hong Kong in RMB, but that would do Leor no good.

A demand draft is virtually just another name for cashier's check (there are slight differences). While I wouldn
't go so far as to say no bank in China can issue an RMB cashier's check, you are absolutely correct in that negotiable instrument would be worthless once outside of China.

Not only is there a problem with RMB not being a freely convertible currency, but the act of negotiating the RMB item and trying to obtain US$ would be impossible with current currency restrictions.