Good news! Several banks have officially announced the optimization and upgrade of foreign currency cash and remittance services.

Implementing cash and exchange rate parity, and waiving the exchange rate difference for cash and exchange, recently, several large state-owned banks have announced the optimization and upgrade of foreign currency cash and exchange services, further simplifying the business handling process.

On December 13th, the Agricultural Bank of China posted on its official website that starting from December 13, 2024, it will optimize and upgrade personal foreign currency cash and exchange services. The upgraded services mainly include implementing cash and exchange rate parity and waiving the exchange rate difference for all currencies.

Implementing cash and exchange rate parity. For all personal foreign exchange currencies that the Agricultural Bank can handle, such as US dollars, Hong Kong dollars, euros, pounds, yen, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, etc., the bank implements the same buying and selling rates for cash and exchange. When customers handle personal exchange settlement business, the buying price for cash and exchange is the same. When handling personal exchange purchase business, the selling price for cash and exchange is the same.

Waiving the exchange rate difference for all currencies. When customers handle transactions involving the conversion of foreign currency cash and exchange nature, such as depositing and withdrawing cash from exchange accounts, transferring funds between exchange accounts and cash accounts, and handling personal cross-border remittances from cash accounts, the exchange rate difference is waived due to the implementation of cash and exchange rate parity.

The announcement stated, "After the service upgrade, the attributes and functions of personal foreign exchange accounts held by customers at the Agricultural Bank of China will not change, and all types of business that were originally handled through exchange accounts and cash accounts can still be handled normally."

In addition to the Agricultural Bank of China, several other banks have recently announced similar upgrades to personal foreign exchange accounts for cash services.

On September 4th, the Construction Bank issued an announcement regarding the impact and changes in services related to the system upgrade of the consolidation of personal foreign exchange accounts for cash and exchange. The bank stated that the funds in the existing personal demand foreign exchange cash accounts would be transferred to the demand exchange accounts in the same amount, and thereafter, the exchange accounts would be used by default to handle foreign exchange business. After the consolidation of personal foreign exchange cash and exchange accounts, the bank canceled the related fees for cash and exchange conversion. The Construction Bank clarified that both its counter and electronic channels implement the same buying and selling rates for personal cash exchange and exchange exchange, and the same buying and selling rates for personal foreign exchange transactions for cash and exchange; the exchange rates for exchange purchase and settlement remain unchanged, and the buying and selling quotes for exchange remain unchanged.

On October 11th, the Bank of China announced the optimization and upgrade of foreign currency cash and exchange services. From 18:00 on October 11th, the bank implemented cash and exchange rate parity for 26 currencies, including US dollars, Hong Kong dollars, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, euros, yen, pounds, Singapore dollars, Thai baht, Korean won, Macau patacas, New Zealand dollars, Swiss francs, Russian rubles, Philippine pesos, Emirati dirhams, Indonesian rupiah, Swedish kronor, Norwegian kronor, Danish kronor, South African rand, Turkish lira, Kazakhstani tenge, Mexican pesos, Saudi riyals, Mongolian tugriks, etc. The buying price for cash and exchange used by customers for exchange settlement is the same, and the selling price for cash and exchange used by customers for exchange purchase is the same. The bank waives the exchange rate difference for the above-mentioned currencies, meaning that when customers handle transactions involving the conversion of foreign currency cash and exchange nature, such as depositing and withdrawing cash from exchange accounts, transferring funds between exchange accounts and cash accounts, and handling cross-border remittances from cash accounts, the exchange rate difference is waived due to the implementation of cash and exchange rate parity.

On October 12th, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) announced the optimization and upgrade of its personal foreign exchange account system. ICBC's personal foreign exchange accounts no longer distinguish between cash and exchange identifiers and no longer charge a difference for cash and exchange conversion. The upgraded personal foreign exchange accounts will uniformly use the "exchange" identifier. At the same time, the bank implements the same buying and selling rates for cash and exchange for multiple foreign exchange currencies, including US dollars, euros, Hong Kong dollars, yen, pounds, etc.

Dong Ximiao, Chief Researcher at China United, believes that after the implementation of cash and exchange rate parity, commercial banks will waive the exchange rate difference for cash and exchange, which will reduce the cost of personal foreign exchange business, saving expenses for personal study abroad and travel. At the same time, commercial banks optimize the foreign exchange exchange process and improve exchange efficiency, which helps to enhance customer experience.