14 banks in Beijing recently have come out with a new service. The new service allows you to use any passbook or card from any of the 14 networked banks anywhere. These 14 banks are:

• ICBC Beijing Branch
• Agricultural Bank of China Beijing Branch
• Bank of China Beijing Branch
• China Construction Bank Beijing Branch
• Bank of Communications Beijing Branch
• China Everbright Bank Beijing Branch
• CITIC Bank General Business Department
• Huaxia Bank General Business Department
• China Minsheng Banking Co Ltd Business Department
• Shenzhen Development Bank Beijing Branch
• Industrial Bank Co Ltd Beijing Branch
• Pudong Development Bank Beijing Branch
• Bank of Beijing
• Beijing Agricultural Commercial Bank

To use this new service, though, you must apply at your original bank (that's the bank you opened up the account in). You will need your ID or passport, too, and you'll need to choose your password and set an upper limit. (These are all safety measures.)

And in the rare chance you do experience some trouble -- remember that this is a new service (to some extents still very much a public beta). Patience will get you through...

By the way, they will charge you for this value-added service. Fees go from CNY 1 all the way up to CNY 200. Ow-wah!

So what's the use of this new service? Too often, we have our savings account at one bank, but our hard-earned kuai comes in through another account. Another possibility is that we may want to go to one of those banks with a shorter crowd (ICBC is known for its sheer crowds). The idea is that you would only need to bother with one card (or one passbook) and use that across all 14 banks. Convenience is the golden word here.

Unfortunately -- because the application procedures and costs were either too convoluted or too high, not a lot of people took advantage of the new offer. It really is up to the banks to help us make this a lot easier -- and to probably slash costs, too.