Off a a nice start in the day – started on my training program – finally managed to win the fight with the stationary bike – and managed to ride it for 40 minutes. Felt great.
So, reason for starting with that, it actually set a nice tone for my day – with lots of energy.
Quick drop in the office for an hour, and then off to HSBC in Beijing. Looking to consolidate all my banking with a global bank. Have been working with HSBC in US, and HK now – and now looking at moving my China banking into HSBC in Beijing. Actually, the currency controls are quite painful – a WOFE in China is only allowed to have one Convertible account – so for me to move my account of out Bank of China is actually a LOT of work. Regardless, it will have to be done – otherwise I’m missing out on value I can get from the scale of the business.
Couple of interesting things I learned from HSBC Beijing that i didn’t learn from HSBC in HK.
First,HSBC seems to have some kind of a HSBCNET system, where you can control all your global banking through one common interface. I asked that in HK but was told it didn’t exist – apparently it does – so I could use that.
2nd – in terms of credit establishment – if all my banking is within HSBC – regardless of country – it is much easier for HSBC to deal with credit. So, actually, it would appear that credit, for global entities, is not based on local banks but rather on a global level. Again, nice to learn – going to pursue that angle.
3rd – HSBC seems to have a concept of a Global Account Manager – again – perfect for me since I’m operating in some many countries – so again, going to try to reach out and see how to get into that stream.
So, overall, I can see that consolidating the banking, its tedious and slow work – but huge benefits down the road. So, the effort now had no instant payback but a year from now – its going to pay huge dividends in terms of simplified operations, lines, etc. Just from accounting point of view, being able to get accounting date from one source or at least using one SOP is huge – never mind the other benefits.
The other thing I checked was requirements for a mortgage in China. Was told before that it was impossible to get, but yet again, I managed to connect with a right person – and in fact – not all that hard at all – if things are setup correctly. So, again, nothing for the short term BUT knowing what is required – can allow me to setup things on my side so that should I want a mortgage in China a year or two from now – I will be able to get one. Yes, for those from US or Canada – this may seem like a trivial thing BUT for us Expats living in no-mans-land – a simple thing like mortgage – because quite difficult. So, good to understand the needs, (just like with the business side) – and setup up the foundation so that options are available into the future.
The evening I spent going through my inbox – and moving things into my todo list- still quite behind but made some good headway. So, I’m still actually in plan and organize mode – real work hopefully on Friday and Saturday.
Planned out my tomorrow, and have a nice block of 5 hours of ‘time’ – so should be able to do some good stuff.
So, this week so far has been great – the question is, did my prediction of a great week last week make this week a great week, or was it destined to be. Hmmm. How about we open the box and see if the cat is alive or dead. (ok – for those not into quantum physics – I’m not off the wall – that is the Schrodinger cat experiment – here is a link for an explanationhttp://www.manyuniverses.com/schrodingerscat.htm
Clock is hitting 11:30PM – time for a bit of reading and some ZZZ… Going to have to tame that bicycle again tomorrow morning.