Hello everyone!
I am moving to Japan for a year in 2 weeks and initially planned to open a bank account to send money from my home country to through third party companies who use fair exchange rates.
Now I‘ve been hearing more and more often that it isn‘t easy to open an account as a foreigner. Especially one that can immediately receive/send money abroad.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a go to bank to set up an account quickly for a year that can receive money from overseas instantly?
Or what other alternatives would work?
I don‘t have a super fancy international credit card that would let me withdraw money with 0 fees and market exchange rates…
Edit 1: My current solution would be to open a Japan Post account, send money through Wise to count as domestic transaction and then withdraw money from the Japan Post account, pay my rent via bank transfer, etc.?
4 comments
Mmm wise?
Yucho ginkou?
Idk about yucho ginkou taxes but it’s pretty easy to open an account there.
Your university will bring you there and do it for you.
The only way I was able to open an account was bringing someone with me to Japan Post Bank that spoke Japanese. I only tried to send money from Japan Post to my home country bank account and it was successful. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work the other way around, but I’m not familiar with their AML laws and what not.
When I did my exchange in Japan (twice: 2018 and 2019-2020), the university helped us open a bank account. The bank people came to the uni and they helped us fill in the paperwork. It is quite strange (to me) that your university advisor said you need to have lived in Japan for 6 months to open an account as we got it in the first week after arrival.