I've heard that exchanging RBM outside of China, perhaps around Asia in particular, will yield a much lower rate than say buying USD and exchanging those abroad. I've heard first-hand that changing RMB bills in Thailand got a lower-rate. Does anyone have experience in whether this is the case? Maybe there's a difference if you use a debit card from a Chinese bank account?

Another question. Is it relatively safe to keep a decent chunk of money in a Chinese bank while travelling and living abroad? HuaXia bank has a scheme which lets you make one free withdrawal per day outside of China. I'm just a little paranoid about the safety of leaving it here and managing it abroad.

Any comments or info is much appreciated!

A worse exchange rate seems logical. The costs involved in handling small sums are higher in proportion. Why should the rates of exchange be favourable, for a bank they only need them to be bearable for the customer to maximise profit. Remember, the bank is there to make money, providing a service is secondary.

However, if you exchange RMB for USD and then USD for local currency you will pay double exchange rates.

Leaving money in China is safe. The money will go nowhere. However, access to it may be harder. You need to make sure your Chinese visa will allow you to withdraw currency overseas. HuaXia may not charge you, but the other bank may.

There are also limits on what you sums can draw in a given period due to currency regulations. The idea is to stop the flow of illegal monies out of China, and money laundering. This probably will not affect you, if you plan to return to China.

the RMB to Laos Kip exchange rate was better at the border than at the banks in kunming. in fact some of the banks couldn't even supply Kip but maybe that was just at short notice and only Kip.

Yes, there's something quirky going on with cash between Thailand and China. My wife and I honeymooned there last October and discovered that it's not possible to buy Baht from the banks in Kunming (while it IS possible to sell Baht to the banks -go figure!).

There's a black market happening for Baht in Kunming which provides significantly better rates for exchanging RMB than you'll find in Thailand.

@tigertiger I wont have a Chinese visa while I'm abroad. I was thinking of withdrawing money via ATM from HuaXia. Are you saying the money may be blocked to me from the Chinese side?

Does anyone have first-hand experience of withdrawing money from ATMs abroad with a Chinese bank? Did you get the current exchange rate?

Sorry I should have used a capital V.

If you HuaXia card is Union Pay or a Visa card, you need to make sure that it has been given permissions to access your funds from outside China.

@baiyuxiang, that is not true at all. The Bank of China representative in Kunming told me quite clearly that I should exchange Yuan into Baht in Thailand not in China (I already knew that, but I was checking exchange rates for comparison purposes) and indeed this is what I found. As for the black market, no idea where you would find someone selling Baht in Kunming outside of a bank or money changer but I think you probably don't know about the money changers, specifically superrich and similar ones located in the Centralworld area of Bangkok. In December and January, they were buying Yuan at around 4.85-4.90, while at the airport you would get a mere 4.50. At the Bank of China I was quoted about 4.75.