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I am French and I live in France. I am faced with two cases where I will need money when travelling to China:

  • longer-term: a 5 months stay (my son)
  • short-term: a 2 weeks travel (myself)

We both have a WeChat account and will get an Alipay one (he has one already I think). My concern is of course the exchange rates and fees -- the easy solution I know about is Wise, it works great but is also very expensive :)

I could live, in the short-term version, by paying with a credit card for more substantial expenses such as the hotel or cross-country transportation. This is probably not great because of exchange rates but it is not going to be a fortune either.

The everyday expenses (food, ...) would go through his Wexin (WeChat) or Alipay account but this account must be filled up from euros and this is really what I would like to (reasonably) optimize.

WoJ
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1 Answers1

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There are two questions there I can only answer this one:

  • short-term: a 2 weeks travel (myself)

As a French resident you have access to a lot of free bank accounts that will charge a spread of about 0,3 % and no extra fees for exchanging currency using their Visa or MasterCard. Some will also let you cash Chinese currency at ATMs for a similar spread of 0,3 % and no extra fees. N26, Trading 212, Revolut and Trade Republic to name a few.
Some banks also let you exchange in advance and hold multiple currencies in your account (USD, HUF, GBP, CAN), but I'm not aware of one that let's your hold CNY.
I was in China around 10 years ago and back then most (not all) places would take MasterCard and Visa, and ATMs were easy to find. I remember using ATMs next to bank branches and they didn't charge me extra fees. Boutique ATMs next to more convenient places usually will charge a fee.

André
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