Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $160
- Availability: Have to open branch, branches in NY and CA and listed on bonus page
- Direct deposit required: Optional
- Additional requirements: See below
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- Credit card funding: NoneÂ
- Monthly fees: Unknown, waivable
- Early account termination fee: 12 months, bonuses forfeit
- Expiration date: December 31st, 2016
The Offer
- Open your first ICBC-USA checking account (business or personal) by December 31st, 2016 and receive a bonus of up to $135 for personal accounts & $160 for business accounts. Bonus broken down as follows:
- Open a new personal checking account with a minimum opening deposit of at least $500 & debit card & receive a $25 bonus
- Open a new business checking account with a minimum opening deposit of at least $1,500 & debit card & receive a $50 bonus
- Open a combined balance package and receive a $50 bonus
- Use Bill Pay and receive a $25 bonus
- Receive a direct deposit (no minimum specified) and receive a $25 bonus
- Activate Online banking and Paperless statements and receive a $10 bonus
- You can also receive $25 for each person you refer.
Bonus should be a maximum of $160Â for personal accounts and $185 for business accounts if my math is correct.
The Fine Print
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
$25 Referral Bonus
- $25 cash bonus is only available to the referrer (existing customer) and referee (new customer). I assume this means both parties get the bonus
- Cash bonus will be paid to the referrer and referee within 30 days after the account is opened
Feel free to share your referrals in the comments, but try and provide some additional information such as if it’s a hard/soft pull and if you can fund with a credit card and if both parties get $25 or not – this helps other readers and means they will be more likely to use your referral details.
Avoiding Fees
If the account is closed within 12 months, all cash bonuses received will be forfeited. I’m not sure if any other early account termination fee is charged or not. It looks like the monthly fee is waived with a direct deposit, not sure how much it is per month without a direct deposit.
Our Verdict
I find this bonus to be unnecessarily confusing, if anybody has any experiences with this bank please let us know in the comments (and share your referral information) it could be quite a good bonus – but I really hate having to have the account open for 12 months before closing. I doubt we’ll be adding it to our list of the best checking promotions.
Big thanks to reader, David who let us know. Please consider sharing bank bonuses with this site so we can make it even better.
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Don’t bother. Went into their branch today and was told the promotion ended yesterday because it was the last day the post office was open, or at least that was what I could understand because the banker was speaking Cantonese the whole time
Which branch did you go to?
I was about to go to the San Francisco Chinatown branch today.
This may be unrelated, but I think this is somehow connected with their first (also “the” first of all Chinese banks) Visa/UnionPay credit card they are revealing come Jul也（http://www.icbc-us.com/ICBC/%E6%B5%B7%E5%A4%96%E5%88%86%E8%A1%8C/%E5%B7%A5%E9%93%B6%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD%E7%BD%91%E7%AB%99/EN/ProductsServices/Creditcard/Browsecreditcards/）
Thanks, will do a post on this.
Why are we talking about market capitalization?
Large or not, doesn’t matter in bank bonuses; had an awful experience with this bank (nyc) won’t bother.
Its parent company is the largest bank in the world by total assets and second largest by market capitalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks
It was sort of a hassle to close their account. This is based on my personal experience. I wouldn’t bother to go thru all the troubles. (I live in greater Los Angeles area)
Any idea on soft/hard pull? Credit card funding? Etc?
Soft pull. No credit card funding (none that I know of)
Thanks, updated post.
It is the largest bank in China and supposed to be trustworthy.
You left out the BillPay bullet point in the Offer section.
It seems like the total bonus you can get from doing all the options is $185. Would have to clarify that DD, BillPay, etc, apply to each account (per + bus), and not just once.
If it’s just $185 it doesn’t seem worth the hassle.
Being familiar with China’s bank industry myself, I can confirm that ICBC is one of the largest banks in nationally, since it’s owned directly by China’s central government. Along with Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Agricultural Bank of China, they’re the “big four” in China (ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_China).
This is one of the best bank in China. It have branches over the world. Though I don’t know whether this card is good or not
Well, my first comment here.
As a Chinese, I will not agree it is the “best bank in China”. It is largest and therefore has numerous branches everywhere. But its service, hmmm, should be comparable with BoA, which means “nah, not that horrible, but nothing more you can expect”