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Before any financial transaction is made the bank account should be confirmed to ensure that the payment will be transferred to the correct beneficiary. In this chapter two of those source documents, the Bank Account Opening Certificate and the Bank Account Statement are discussed in detail.
1 China Bank Account Opening Certificate
The following items are included in the Bank Account Opening Certificate.
1.1 Permit Number
The permit number consists out of 14 digits, which starts with a letter and is followed by 13 numbers.
1.2 Certificate Number
The certificate number consists out of 12 digits and is subject to fixed form as follows 0000-00000000.
1.3 Official Company Name
The bank account opening certificate includes the official company name as specified on the business license. The company name is included in a standardized sentence which states that the company has been granted permission to open a bank account.
1.4 Legal Representative / Responsible Person
The bank account opening certificate includes the name of the legal representative as specified on the business license.
1.5 Opening Bank Name
The opening bank name is the name of the bank and branch where the company will open the corporate bank account.
1.6 Bank Account Number
Chinese bank account numbers consist out of 19 digits, which are all numbers.
1.7 Issuing Authority
The seal imprint of the issuing authority, the People’s Bank of China, is listed in the signature section at the right-side bottom of the Bank Account Opening Certificate.
When requesting a scan of the Bank Account Opening Certificate, the certificate should include imprints of the company and financial seals at minimum, preferably also include the legal representative seal. The seals imprints should be verified in accordance with the process and requirements described in chapter 5.
2 Bank Account Statement
Although common for small- and medium sized China-based companies to use the bank account for conducting international transactions that has been included in the Bank Account Opening Certificate discussed in the previous paragraph, it is not mandatory to exclusively use this account. Companies are free to select and utilize other bank accounts for this purpose.
In the situation that the potential business partner uses another bank account to which payments have to be made, financial risk can be managed and mitigated by requesting a written statement which includes the bank account details.
For enterprises located outside of mainland China it might be difficult to conduct a site visit to the Administration of Market Regulation and the respective company. Especially when effecting larger payments or frequent payments it is recommended to engage a third-party service provider to conduct the visit on behalf of the foreign enterprise.