What to do if you lose your ATM card in Shenzhen

Today I looked in my wallet and found that I was missing my ATM card from my wallet. After looking all over my Shenzhen Apartment I was not able to find the stupid bank card and after racking my brain I could not think of where I might have lost the card. This happened once before to me and I got very lucky as I had left it at the ATM machine in the China Merchants bank ATM machine that I always use. When I want to inquire about the card they had it sitting there ready for me.

Remember to take your ATM card after withdrawing money

What to do if you have lost an ATM card in Shenzhen? In this case I didn’t think I would be as lucky this time as the last. Before canceling the ATM card I wanted to trace back my recent transactions. Luckily China Merchant’s Bank has petty good mobile banking software for the iPhone and so I logged into my account and found the transaction history. Most of the software is in Chinese so it helps to be able to read Chinese characters. Once I found my transaction history I was able to track down the last time I used my ATM card which was at a nearby bank but not my normal bank. Probably I forgot it there when I withdrew 500 RMB. Unfortunately this bank was closed on a Saturday. Over to China Merchants and they are open on Saturday mornings and not very busy so I just had to tell the greeter I lost my ATM card and walk up to the bank teller. With my passport in hand he was able to look up my account number. After confirming my phone number and signing a paper the process was completed and for only a few of 10RMB. You can’t just walk away with a new card the same day I will have to wait until 7 business days later to pick it up. Luckily I have two bank accounts in China and can use the second ATM card until my new card arrives. Curiously, the bank account number on my account will change with this new card I am not completely sure why this is the case but that bank account was issued to me like 15 years ago when I first arrived so it is possible that this is not the normal case. I was assured that my desktop and mobile banking software would automatically update.