During the New Year's holiday, I took the opportunity to apply for a Hong Kong card online in Hong Kong. My strategy was simple—find a stable internet connection (McDonald's works well), order a drink, and start submitting applications one by one. The entire process was completed in half an hour.

Bank approval speeds vary. ZhongAn was the smoothest, with straightforward information entry and a clean process. HSBC was second, requiring more documents to be submitted, but it was ultimately approved. StarStar is still in the review queue. As for Bank of China Hong Kong, it had the most issues—ID scans failed several times, retries didn't help, and finally the application was rejected. I tried twice more, but got stuck in the same trap. I heard that once an initial application fails, the system records it, and there's little chance within a month, so I gave up. In the end, I left with approval notices from HSBC and ZhongAn, and StarStar's pending approval status.

A detail to note with HSBC—if your wealth management balance is below 10,000 yuan, a 100 yuan management fee will be deducted. I need to top up the account soon to avoid this fee. Regarding timing, the two days around December 30th saw a surge of applicants. I avoided the peak period this time, and the experience was quite good.

In the afternoon, I tried an offline OTC withdrawal in Tsim Sha Tsui. Scan code transfer, face-to-face transaction—definitely convenient. However, I haven't received the physical card yet, and carrying large cash when leaving Hong Kong still feels a bit risky. I only exchanged 2000 yuan to verify the process. There are still quite a few people over there, and the holiday effect is obvious.