When you book your Martial Arts adventure travel and training through StudyMartialArts.Org you may wish to send money to China to pay your selected Kung fu School, Course or Programme. Using the traditional means through a bank to bank transfer may incur transfer fees or commissions, and take more than 5 working days.
This is our guide to sending money to China, cheaply and easily using TransferWise!
What service is best for sending money to China?
I have now been living in China for over a decade now. Transferring money has been a common practice for me whether privately or when assisting my martial arts clients to pay for their training expenses.
I’ve been using TransferWise, for a number of years – its convenient and the savings are big overtime. I’ve used to to send money not just to China but to friends, family and businesses all over the world. One of the biggest benefits of the service is that you only pay a percentage of the amount your send. This is often much more reasonable than currency transfer rates.
When transferring say Euros to CNY (Chinese Yuan), TransferWise’s commission is 1.5%. So if you send 1.000 Euro, Transferwise will charge a commission of about 15 Euro. Banks normally have fees and additionally offer unfavourable exchange rates.
Transferwise on the other had offers the REAL exchange rates between Euro and CNY, USD and CNY and UK Pounds and CNY. Generally you can expect to save 300 CNY/ 40 Euro for every 1,000 Euro in comparison to a typical international bank wire transfer. More money in your pocket means more money for you to spend on pampering yourself after a hard weeks training. If you intend to pay for 3, 6, or even a full year to study martial arts in China then the savings are significant. If you wish to pay your full fees using transferwise 5,000 USD is the maximum amount you can send for each transaction. This means you many have to split your school fee payment.
Typically how long would a transfer take?
Another advantage of using Transferwise, is that your transfer happens much more quickly than traditional banking channels. Most transfers happen the same day. Where as with traditional banking it takes 3-7 working days to complete an international payment.
Are there any drawbacks (when sending money to China)?
In China money transfers are very bureaucratic, and take time. Assets are very controlled so there are limitations when sending money to China that don’t exist for other countries.
Here are the most important ones:
- If you plan to transfer funds into an individual’s bank account (not a business), you can send a maximum amount of 5.000 USD (or an equivalent in another currency) per payment, a maximum of 10.000 USD per day, and a limit of 50.000 USD a year. If sending to a business account, the limit is higher;
- If the recipient is a private individual, you can send money via Transferwise only if they have a Union Pay card.
- You can only send payments to bank accounts opened in one of the main Chinese banks;
- You can only send payments to bank accounts opened by a Chinese national who opened the account with their identity card as ID documentation.
What other options to Transferwise are there?
Services offering a similar service to Transferwise are subject to the same restrictions due to Chinese law. For deposits and application fees for learning kung fu in China we often use paypal as its convenient and well recognised. However, Paypal’s commission adds up. Its something we never put on our customers when collecting these fees but nevertheless we’d much rather have the money in our pockets so we can better serve our customers.
- Paypal’s, commission vary between 3% and 7% whether the transfer is to an individual or business, and usually offers an exchange rate much like the banks which is unfavourable.
- Western Union, is more expensive and is not trackable. This means that if you buy a service or product through Western Union, the seller can always say that they never received the payment (this is a rather common scam, so I don’t feel comfortable recommending this method of payment unless you have to send money urgently or don’t have any other options).
