NOTE · BEFORE YOU WIRE

English name vs legal name on a Chinese PI

Chinese banks pay the legal name on the account, not the English trade name on the proforma invoice. Match the PI, the business license, and the bank beneficiary before you send a deposit.

The English name on a PI is usually a storefront

A proforma invoice from a Chinese supplier often carries a tidy English company name. The business license (营业执照) carries a Chinese legal name. Those two strings are not interchangeable, and the receiving bank does not treat them as interchangeable.

Mainland companies register one Chinese name. That name is what appears on the 营业执照. It usually ends in 有限公司, a limited company, often rendered as “Co., Ltd.” in English. The English line on a PI, an Alibaba storefront, or an email signature is commonly a translation, an abbreviation, or a brand the sales team uses with overseas buyers.

A close translation is still not proof that the PI, the license, and the bank account are the same legal person. A mismatch here is one of the usual reasons a US buyer thinks they paid “the factory” and later cannot reconcile the wire with the company they thought they hired.

What the Chinese legal name actually means

The Chinese legal name (企业名称) is the registered company name. For a mainland supplier, that is the Chinese name on the 营业执照, tied to the Unified Social Credit Code. Chinese corporate accounts are opened against that legal person. The beneficiary name is that legal name, sometimes shown in Chinese, sometimes in a bank-issued romanization of the same name. It is not the marketing English on the PI.

When you instruct a wire, your bank and the receiving bank are matching names and account numbers. They are not matching a WhatsApp display name, an English invoice header, or a storefront brand.

Match these three before the deposit

Put the documents next to each other and ask whether they describe the same legal person:

• The name on the PI, and on the contract if you have one.
• The Chinese legal name on the 营业执照.
• The beneficiary name on the bank account you were given.

If the PI says an English brand and the license is a different 有限公司 in another city, stop. If the license matches the Chinese name you were told, but the account is a personal name, a Hong Kong company, or a third mainland entity, stop. Ask for a license image that shows the Chinese name and the Unified Social Credit Code, and for bank details issued in that same name.

A mismatch is a risk indicator, not automatic fraud

Sales teams localize. Translations differ. Some factories use an export desk with a slightly different English brand. None of that is automatically a scam. It is a reason to demand documents before a five-figure deposit leaves your account.

Typical stories you can actually test: the English name is a translation of the Chinese legal name; the seller is a trader using a factory for production; the account belongs to a related entity; the license you received is for a different company in the same group. Each of those changes who you are paying, who you can pursue if the goods never ship, and whether a “factory deposit” is even the right term.

What the memo does with the name

I do not source products and I do not visit plants. I do desk research on Chinese public records and write an English memo so you can see whether the name you were given is a real, existing legal person, and whether the public file is consistent with the story on the PI.

Findings are tagged CONFIRMED FACT, RISK INDICATOR, NOT VERIFIED, RECOMMENDED ACTION, or LIMITATION. Registered shareholders and related companies are clues, not a claim of ultimate beneficial ownership. Public records also will not confirm that a SWIFT beneficiary line is the account you will actually hit. That last match is still yours to demand from the supplier, using the legal name identified in the memo.