Opening a Bank of China (Hong Kong) Card: Several Extremely Troublesome "Pitfalls"

During the New Year's Day holiday, I went to Hong Kong to open a bank card with Bank of China (Hong Kong). I thought it would be a very simple matter, but in practice I ran into quite a few unexpected problems. In particular, the issues with China Telecom SIM card roaming and the bank App's logic cost me a lot of time.

1. The "Infinite Loop" of the Roaming Permission

This was my first time in Hong Kong, and I made a rookie mistake: I forgot to enable international roaming on my phone number before leaving. Once I got to Hong Kong, my phone had no signal at all. I tried to log into the China Telecom App to enable roaming online, but logging into the App required an SMS verification code — and without roaming, I couldn't receive any SMS. That sent me into an infinite loop. Solution: The only option was to call the carrier's human customer service (ideally using a companion's phone). After verifying a ton of personal information, an agent manually enabled roaming from the backend. The entire process took nearly an hour.

Advice: No matter what, be absolutely sure roaming is enabled before you set off. Also, international roaming seems to come in two forms: one for receiving SMS, and another for data. Don't enable the data one — it's insanely expensive, 20 RMB per GB. You'd be better off buying a SIM card at a 7-Eleven in Hong Kong instead.

2. The Bizarre Logic of China Telecom's Verification Code Reception

After roaming was turned on, I noticed a strange phenomenon: when registering for virtual banks like ZA Bank and Ant Bank, my China Telecom SIM received SMS effortlessly. But with Bank of China (Hong Kong) in particular, the verification code SMS simply never arrived. I tried over and over and switched carriers; eventually I turned off "auto-select network" in my phone settings and manually selected CSL, which finally let me receive the code and complete the initial registration. But the confusing part? The fix didn't last. When I tried again the next day, locking to CSL was useless too — the SMS still wouldn't come through. Utterly absurd!

3. The Logic Problem of the Bank of China (Hong Kong) App

The usability logic of the Bank of China (Hong Kong) App is equally maddening: