Guide to opening a Hong Kong bank account, the ultimate fastest and most cost-effective version (for Shenzhen residents)
Last weekend, I was soaking in Tangqi with a buddy and we started talking about what I've been up to lately. I gave him a rough idea about IPO subscriptions in the Hong Kong stock market and showed him the price movements of some previously hot stocks. He was absolutely blown away.
This guy also trades A-shares. When he saw the near-doubling performance of $BLOKS(00325.HK), $MAO GEPING(01318.HK), and $MAO GEPING(01318.HK) (at that time $DUALITYBIO-B(09606.HK) hadn't listed yet) on their first dark pool trading day, he said he'd never doubled his money on a single A-share stock in his life.
Since we were at Futian Port, we immediately decided to cross the border and open a Hong Kong bank account (a prerequisite for opening a Hong Kong/US stock brokerage account).
I recommended he try online account opening with a virtual bank since it was Sunday afternoon and only virtual banks were available.
Here's the account opening process:
1. Prepare your ID card and Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macau, then cross the border at Futian Port.
2. If your phone has no signal or internet access, turn on cellular data, disable automatic network selection, and manually choose HK SmarTone.
3. After crossing, at Lok Ma Chau MTR Station, you still can't open a virtual bank account. You need to take one MTR stop to Sheung Shui so your IP shows as being in Hong Kong.
4. Exit at Sheung Shui, find a café, search for National Immigration Administration 12367 on WeChat Mini Program, click Services for Chinese Citizens, then Entry-Exit Record Inquiry, and finally download your entry-exit records (note: must download the file, screenshots won't work).
5. Take a sip of coffee, open the virtual bank app, and complete account opening step by step.
6. Wrap up and head home.
Total cost: Round-trip MTR tickets (a bit pricey), a cup of coffee, totaling less than 100 yuan, taking about 1 hour. You can even pick up some duty-free Chinese cigarettes on your way back. (Note: Entry-exit records typically take over 30 minutes to update, so you can kill time on your phone at the café.)
There's an ultra-budget version: After crossing, sit on a bench at Lok Ma Chau MTR Station for half an hour waiting for the update. Then at Sheung Shui, don't exit the station—just sit on the floor to open your account, then cross to the opposite platform to head home.
This way, you save the coffee and round-trip tickets (same station entry/exit), with total cost: basically zero.
The key advantage is there's no time restriction—you can go anytime.
As for whether my buddy caught the InnoBIO listing? Who knows—this story is made up anyway. The main point is to share the experience. For specific bank recommendations, try Baidu first. If you really can't find it, then ask me.
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