Stuck with the Wrong Currency
Grab hold of any expat or tourist along the Bund or within Shanghai’s central business district. Ask them, “In your daily experiences, what is outstandingly different about China?” You’d probably hear about China’s ePayment systems. WeChat Pay and Alipay are the common ones, otherwise known as 微信支付and 支付宝.
In a city that lives and breathes ePayments, one never truly lives in Shanghai until one has a bank account. After which, the realm of digital payments is unlocked, launching you in a new dimension of 21st century living in China.
Imagine your phone also being your transport card, and your debit card, and your wallet for every monetary transaction. Getting out of the house to hang out with your friends or to run errands would only require bringing your phone. Sounds convenient, right?
Setting up a local bank account as foreigners, we have realised, is a tedious process. Having been in Shanghai for 2 weeks now, my friends and I in Batch 32 have struggled and deservedly tasted the sweet relief of setting up our bank accounts.
It was one of the tasks to check off as part of our settling-in process, and an important one at that. We expected to set it up within the first day of arrival, but we were too hopeful.
My housemates and I walked into the first ICBC branch we could find on Day 1. Our confident house-head Eugene addressed the counter staff, “我们要开户口 (We want to open a bank account)” The staff frowned a little at our odd triplet, and asked several more clarifying questions, “你们用什么辨识？(What identification are you using?)”
护照。(Passport)
“是留学生吗？(Are you exchange students?)”
是。(Yes)
“需要你们的……(We need your..)”
They rattled off a list of documents that, truthfully, I did not catch. As it turned out, we had all the documents, except for one, which we would have to wait a whole month for. We cajoled and questioned for a while, trying to see if we could set it up without that one document. Our efforts were to no avail, and we left the bank disappointed.
Over the next 3 days, we made our way to 5 or 6 bank branches. We were increasingly exasperated, sleep-deprived, and tired from house-hunting and other orientation activities.
One might say that we were stubborn to insist on setting up a bank account immediately, as we did not have the ‘required documents’. However, it is possible to set up a bank account in Shanghai without that one document. As absurd as it sounds, (LOL) different banks and bank branches differ in the stringency of their requirements, and it was simply a matter of finding the right one.
Living as a tourist or a semi-resident, using cash is possible here. One day however, my lack of a bank account nearly slapped me in the face.
At the end of a long, wet day of house hunting and university orientation, I was all sorts of tired and hungry. Thankfully, on the horizon emerged a sugary oasis: a HeyTea outlet. Our batchmate Matthias had claimed that HeyTea was so good that it was “life-changing”, truly worth drinking.
Of course, we had to try it! Li Ying, my housemate, and I walked in, and started ordering our drink. I told the cashier my order and asked her if they accepted cash. Up to this point, our cash payments were accepted at all the establishments we visited. This time, however, my heart stopped.
The cashier gave me a sweet, half-embarrassed smile and told me they didn’t have change for my big 50 yuan note and could not accept my payment.
My smile froze on my face. Inside, my heart clenched, and sunk in my ribcage with an almost audible clunk. No bubble tea? I can’t buy my bubble tea?
In that moment, I felt like a second-class human being folding my paper note back into my wallet.
The cashier rummaged around below the cash register, and she popped back up with a cheerful face, “啊，有了！” I was saved by a box of petty cash behind the counter.
This encounter made me even more determined to get a bank account. We continued stopping by bank branches to try to set one up.
2019年9 月, 4 days after arriving in Shanghai: my bank account finally become fully functional.
I felt this weightless sensation coming out of the ATM cubicle. I had finally managed to deposit the thick wads of cash I had been carrying around for the past few days. Finally, I could become a dignified, Alipay-wielding, WeChat payment-transferring, proper person living in Shanghai.
“I feel like a brand-new person leh! This is truly life changing,” Li Ying exclaimed as we walked out of the bank. I was buzzing with delight as I texted and yelled the good news over WeChat.
That afternoon, both of us installed applications and synched accounts, stepping into an ePayment world previously closed to us. Wechat payment, Alipay, Taobao (a shopping app), Metro app, eLeMa (food delivery). Just with our phones, we could pay for our metro rides, book a Didi ride, shop online, pay at offline stores, and on and on!
For myself, I found it useful that ePayments simplified the flow of money from person to person. For example, after a group meal, the person who paid can request a “Split Bill” on Wechat. With a few taps, you can pay for your share of dinner. Skip the awkward fumbling for change, or “Eh, can you please pay me $xx for dinner?” prompts that get lost in the sea of messages. We used these easy payment methods to transfer money between each other.
Our everyday activities changed within a day or two. Soon, we were beeping and QR-coding our way about town. Thankfully for new arrivals in Shanghai, while it did make a big difference to be able to carry out ePayments, everyday transactions can still be carried out with cash.
I visited my batchmate, Hwee Peng, at her house in what she calls遥远的浦东. She faced some difficulty in setting up her bank account and shared, “Actually, it is possible to survive without a bank account. But some things you cannot do, for example Taobao,” which is crucial to buying home necessities on a budget.
On top of that, Hwee Peng lives in a newly built suburb which does not yet have a supermarket or affordable eateries nearby. Without a bank account, she could not set up an account on 河马, a grocery ordering and delivery platform to buy food to cook. It also ruled out the ever popular 外卖 option of ordering food delivery. As students on a tight budget, the costs of living without a bank account can be high. The financially savvy foreigner is quick to see that setting up a bank account as soon as possible allows for greater savings and convenience.
For my housemates, one of the most painful repercussions of being without a bank account was not being able to use滴滴 or 美团, popular ride-hailing applications. This left us with public transport or metered taxis to get around town. Until we had a bank account, we stuck to brisk walking and riding the metro through the city, avoiding metered taxis as much as possible. Unlike booking through an app, metered taxis charge riders based on the duration of the ride. With heavy traffic and inclement weather, the ride times often increased and hiked up the cost of taking a taxi.
It is technically possible to live as a tourist or ride out your first few weeks as a new resident with cash. The main concerns are the higher costs and hassle of handling cash (paying your landlord rent in cash, anyone? The Shanghaibois did it 😉).
These may not seem like a big matter at first. To many of us around the world, handling cash isn’t even considered a hassle, it is merely a necessary medium of exchange. However, using ePayments in a city which lives and breathes digital payments puts handling cash into a new perspective. A fish wouldn’t know that water is wet until it experiences dry land.
Li Ying was right. We walked into those ATM cubicles noobs fiddling with cash, and we walked out with new ePayment superpowers.
