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Banks in Japan

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Hofmeyer

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Man fuck Japan Post Bank.

They almost made me lose 1 million yen because they don't have English support on forex transfers and "don't accept international transfers in yen."

What the fuck.

Shinsei bank looks good but I'm seeing contradictory info on their pages, one says you need more than a year on your visa to open an account the other help page says you need at least a year. Anyone know which it is?

Ok time for beer number three. What a fucking week.
 
Here's the link to their phone numbers. It appears the English speaking line is open 24 hours.

http://www.shinseibank.com/english/sonota/

Best of luck. They have been good to me with great exchange rates. They financed my house.

Have a beer on me. I'm on the way to the train station to pick up my son from soccer practice. Then, a nice glass of red wine.
 
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Thanks, I'll give them a call when everything isn't fuzzy and beer colored. Have a wine on me too, buddy.
 
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http://www.shinseibank.com/english/e_speakers/pop_openaccount_movie.html

Ineligibilities
  • Non-residents of Japan
  • "Period of Stay" on the Residence card is less than 1 year.
  • Corporate application
  • Post office box address
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I think you're reading #2 incorrectly. What #2 means is that your resident card has to be approved for stay of 1 year or more. For example if you are only have a visa for 6 month stay you can not open an account with them but if you have one that is for 1 year or 5 years you can open an account with them.
 
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There's an answer in their faq somewhere where it says different, cant find it now though I'll give them a call on monday.
 
Shinsei was easy to deal with compared to the traditional banks, just go to their English speaking office and talk with them (if it's still around). You'd walk out with a bank account and a debit card an hour later.
 
910234 said:
The other bank worth trying is Prestia (formally CitiBank). I have an account with Prestia and Shinsei and it seems that Prestia is more set-up for trading and a wide range of financial services.
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So they also offer online banking in English then? Actually never heard of them before, but true that I don't see any Citi anymore. Any better compared to Shinsei?
 
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Sweetpotato said:
So they also offer online banking in English then? Actually never heard of them before, but true that I don't see any Citi anymore. Any better compared to Shinsei?
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Yes, most of their services are in English including online banking. The only issue is that you have to have a certain amount of money in your account each month otherwise they deduct a monthly banking fee.
 
Sweetpotato said:
So they also offer online banking in English then? Actually never heard of them before, but true that I don't see any Citi anymore. Any better compared to Shinsei?
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Prestia = Sumitomo, who bought Citi’s local consumer banking business - everything that was Citi has been closed or rebranded as Prestia. Citi’s corporate bank remains, but just a branch operation from the U.S.

No idea what prestia is like now...
 
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Guys, TransferWise all the way. Excellent costumer service, rates and fees which blow Shinsei and other local banks out of the water.

Anyway, don't take my word for it. Check them out and compare for yourself.

https://transferwise.com/jp/
 
Ojaysee said:
Guys, TransferWise all the way. Excellent costumer service, rates and fees which blow Shinsei and other local banks out of the water.
Click to expand...

Only if you transfer small amounts, the cut over is less half a million yen I believe. Anything more and Shinsei is cheaper.

Though I believe Shinsei doesn't have the services you mentioned, at least they looked at me strangely when I asked for the nurse costume.
 
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TAG Manager said:
Prestia = Sumitomo, who bought Citi’s local consumer banking business - everything that was Citi has been closed or rebranded as Prestia. Citi’s corporate bank remains, but just a branch operation from the U.S.

No idea what prestia is like now...
Click to expand...

My one word summary would be: “shitshow”.
 
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My experience with Shinsei has not been great. I opened an account with them some years ago hoping to move some or most of my JPY domestic funds from Mizuho in the hopes that transferring money abroad would be easier with Shinsei. Other than speaking English, I don't find them to be any better than any other J bank. Recently Shinsei asked me alot of silly questions about the origin of my funds on deposit and wanted documentation to prove that my money is legit. Pain in the ass. To top it off, the investment services and products they offer are really, really bad. The fees and spreads are outrageously high. Oh and if you actually need to go to a branch to do something, be prepared to wait for hours.
 
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warubuta said:
My experience with Shinsei has not been great. I opened an account with them some years ago hoping to move some or most of my JPY domestic funds from Mizuho in the hopes that transferring money abroad would be easier with Shinsei. Other than speaking English, I don't find them to be any better than any other J bank. Recently Shinsei asked me alot of silly questions about the origin of my funds on deposit and wanted documentation to prove that my money is legit. Pain in the ass. To top it off, the investment services and products they offer are really, really bad. The fees and spreads are outrageously high. Oh and if you actually need to go to a branch to do something, be prepared to wait for hours.
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I'm with Shinsei because I was lucky enough to catch them during a small window in time in 2007, due to my visa status, that their policies relaxed enough to finance my land and home loan. I had a twenty-three year loan, but will have it all paid by this May.

All my banking with Shinsei is done online. My American Social Security deposits are sent there electronically. My mortgage account gives me great exchange rates, so I'm content. I live a pretty simple life, so it works fine for me.

http://sre.shinseibank.com/InterestRateC/rate_list_fx_en.aspx
 
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warubuta said:
Other than speaking English, I don't find them to be any better than any other J bank
Click to expand...

I agree totally and as I don't even speak English to them they are just as bad as any other bank in Japan. But I have now quite a long history with Shinsei and thus they don't ask me any questions.

Unlike some other banks that I have not used for years; just got asked to prove from where the money came to another bank. Told them you can see it came from my bank account from Europe. Then they asked me to produce a passbook to show where I got that money there in the first place. Had to tell them that bank hasn't used passbooks this century.

By the way; for investment products just got offered a dollar deposit from SMBC. The yearly rate is 3.5% so at first look I though it might be interesting. Then I read it is a 2 month deposit. And you need to deposit in yens, which means they take 1 yen per dollar as exchange fee. And after two months the same to the other direction. So if the rate stays the same you end up losing 1.2% of your deposit.
 
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MikeH said:
I agree totally and as I don't even speak English to them they are just as bad as any other bank in Japan. But I have now quite a long history with Shinsei and thus they don't ask me any questions.

Unlike some other banks that I have not used for years; just got asked to prove from where the money came to another bank. Told them you can see it came from my bank account from Europe. Then they asked me to produce a passbook to show where I got that money there in the first place. Had to tell them that bank hasn't used passbooks this century.

By the way; for investment products just got offered a dollar deposit from SMBC. The yearly rate is 3.5% so at first look I though it might be interesting. Then I read it is a 2 month deposit. And you need to deposit in yens, which means they take 1 yen per dollar as exchange fee. And after two months the same to the other direction. So if the rate stays the same you end up losing 1.2% of your deposit.
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Depressing. They pitch these products to you with a straight face. Between the banks and the Zeimusho, getting your money to work for you here is a real battle.
 
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roots reggae said:
I'm with Shinsei because I was lucky enough to catch them during a small window in time in 2007, due to my visa status, that their policies relaxed enough to finance my land and home loan. I had a twenty-three year loan, but will have it all paid by this May.

All my banking with Shinsei is done online. My American Social Security deposits are sent there electronically. My mortgage account gives me great exchange rates, so I'm content. I live a pretty simple life, so it works fine for me.

http://sre.shinseibank.com/InterestRateC/rate_list_fx_en.aspx
Click to expand...

You mean interest rates on your mortgage? I think the mortgage rates are not that great. You put down between 10 to 20% and pay between 1 to 2% interest on the debt. The bank has no risk as they could sell your house easily for 10% less than you paid. Inflation meanwhile is zero or negative. 2% spead over inflation is too much. Banks are supposed to invest broadly along a risk/reward curve, offer investments also along a risk reward curve and take a sliver of a spread. Japanese banks offer bullshit investments, pay zero interest on deposits, and make all of their money on fees and handling charges. Its not banking. Its bullshit.
 
Pretty much like every other banking system in the world... ups and downs.

I stick with 3 Banks for normal stuff and then I have Shinsei, which offers the most painless international transfers, IMHO. Yeah, you gotta go through and set it up with all the security questions, source of funds validation, usage, etc. But, once it's set up, smooth sailing...

For normal banking, I just stuck with 3 of the major Japanese banks, one being Japan Post. I don't buy into their products because I invest elsewhere. (Aside from major loan products and credit cards.)
 
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From the sounds of it I should just keep my money abroad and eat the exchange fees then, what a pain.
 
warubuta said:
You mean interest rates on your mortgage? I think the mortgage rates are not that great. You put down between 10 to 20% and pay between 1 to 2% interest on the debt. The bank has no risk as they could sell your house easily for 10% less than you paid. Inflation meanwhile is zero or negative. 2% spead over inflation is too much. Banks are supposed to invest broadly along a risk/reward curve, offer investments also along a risk reward curve and take a sliver of a spread. Japanese banks offer bullshit investments, pay zero interest on deposits, and make all of their money on fees and handling charges. Its not banking. Its bullshit.
Click to expand...

My company paid for much of my purchase through their housing allowance. What I needed was a bank that was willing to loan me the money on my earnings alone, since my Japanese wife had no source of income after we married.

A little over ten years ago I was paying rent. As soon as we could get a loan-we looked for three years, we had a house built the way we wanted, thirty million Yen for the land, twenty-three for the house.

I don't know that much about banking to comment further. I do know that soon I will only have taxes and upkeep to pay, rather than the 3.6 million Yen a year I paid in rent for eight years prior to purchase. I have Shinsei Bank to thank for helping me.
 
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