Came back to Japan after three years. Trying to organize and clean up my bank/pension/insurance accounts and I am annoyed. Can’t use my email address as user ID. User ID has to be mailed to me with some long ass alpha-numerals. Forgot password or locked out of account, I have to submit a paper to have it reissued, which takes about a week. I can’t install any of their apps because my App Store account is not created in Japan. I just want to register and start managing my accounts online, which I am used to seeing no more than three minutes to take. I can’t even register because it is so manual and requires physical paper mailed back and forth. By the time these mails get to the address, I won’t be here.
9 comments
You can change the location of your App Store in settings.
Sony Bank is Amazing. They have a great English web app interface.
You’re lucky your bank even has an app or allows online sign up.
Japan sucks for banking, period. It’s like the country proceeded in a very different direction to the rest of the world from a common starting point in the 1970s.
Unless you go with one of the online banks, you’ll probably have a hard time using the apps of the traditional banks. For pension and some other public services I recommend getting the MyNumber card (you actually get some serious money if you sign up now!) as you can connect various services. The pension website nenkin-netto is incredibly awful though.
Slightly different topic but not sure if you saw the article. When Microsoft turned off Internet Explorer a lot of smaller businesses and government agencies suffered because their services were built to work only on Internet Explorer. INTERNET EXPLORER… in 2022… *insert Jumanji meme “what year is it?!”*
Sounds like a whole lot of “you” problems.
Edit: The downvotes crack me up. OP kept bank accounts open when he was a non-resident, doesn’t have a permanent address now, and is complaining because he’s having problems activating them.
IT here, as many other things is 20 years behind the rest of the world.
Anyone remember or still have the pin generating TOKEN from JPB? What a debacle!! LOL
I can help you with the JP iphone account since someone on Reddit informed me I was doing it wrong. Initially I thought I had to log out of iCloud to change App Stores. You don’t need to do that.
* You can use another gmail account to make the account that’s set in Japan
* On your iPhone just go to the App Store app & scroll all the way to the bottom & log out.
* Login to your JP account here & download any JP apps you need
* Scroll back to the bottom & log out & login to your regular account
* When the JP apps get updated you will need to put in the password for JP account once. After that they will update the same as your other apps.
I was logging in & out of iCloud previously & a few people here on Reddit informed me there was an easier way.