Payment risk · PRACTICAL GUIDE
Can a Chinese Company Use a Personal Bank Account for Payment?
A request to pay an individual is not automatically proof of fraud, but it breaks the clean link between contract party and recipient. That link matters if the deal fails.
The evidence problem
When the seller named in the contract is not the account holder, the buyer may later need to prove why payment to the third party discharged the price or why the contracting company remains liable.
Oral explanations are fragile. Obtain written instructions from an authorised company representative, identify the recipient and record the commercial reason.
Safer controls
Prefer payment to an account held in the exact registered name of the contracting company. If a third-party arrangement is unavoidable, seek a signed, chopped agreement defining receipt, liability, invoicing and refund obligations.
Pause where the account changes suddenly, the beneficiary is unrelated, or the supplier resists basic identity checks.
Initial document checklist
- Contract-party name
- Beneficiary name
- Written payment instruction
- Authority and company chop
- Refund responsibility
