Guys, I’m new to Japan, just found a house, I don’t have a bank ac yet…they gave me a SMBC account and asked me to transfer moeny(お振込み) to pay the initial fees, then I bring cash and went to SMBC window, the lady said I can’t transfer money cos I haven’t stay here for over 6 months, but she said I can use ATM to do that, however there’s a limted(100k) for each transfer.
isn’t that werid? I had to stay here for over 6 months overwise can’t use window to do that but I can use ATM instead?
6 comments
Can’t you tell the agency/landlord that it will come in multiple transfers and do it in 100k increments?
But I’ve never heard that 6 month issue before – I thought it was only for opening accounts.
Don’t you need a bank account to send a transfer?
Most people would of course do this by bank transfer, but if you contact the realtor/landlord/management company (whoever you need to pay in this instance) and just ask them to pay cash they will probably let you. Just let them know ahead of time and their accounting can usually handle relatively large amounts in cash.
I have seen strange restrictions on transfers before, depending on the bank. Its annoying but not much to be done about it, especially to address your immediate problem.
There’s endless little roadblocks in Japan that I believe exist to make it difficult for the populace to operate outside standard employment channels and deliberately disincentivize entrepreneuship. They’re slowly being eroded but very slowly.
They won’t care the transfers are in batches. They’ll only care they got the money. Just make sure the transfer name is correct.
You can use the ATM to deposit (“transfer”) without a card. I do think it’s weird that they reserve the window for resident accounts, but I suppose human resources is limited and they want to prioritize resident account holders.