So I keep getting ads to change my SMBC account to Olive, but is it an upgrade? From what I read it’s supposed to be a 3-in-1 account, but I don’t fully understand some things. Right now I don’t have any credit cards in Japan, and only use my CCs from home, and debit/prepaid cards (mostly Au Pay), partially because it’s always been so hard to get a credit card here to the point that I just gave up, I tried twice with both Rakuten and MUFG (tied to my other bank account). I’m not sure why I always got denied, maybe because it was before I got PR. If I were to do this upgrade would I have to go through a credit check? Anyone know if they are strict or would they be more lenient? I also assume that if I were able to get this and use it regularly I could maybe establish credit here too, if it is a CC.
3 comments
You still need a credit check to get the credit function to work.
The main advantage is that you can swap between debit and credit on the app and the app is more detailed for purchases.
I prefer Olive because I can use it on Apple Pay, unlike the normal SMBC Debit card.
Olive account and credit mode for the Olive card are two different things. You can switch your account to Olive and start getting benefits such as free transfers (up to 3 per month but this limit is now not enforced for an undecided time period), ability to add the card to Apple Pay etc. This is done pretty much automatically and does not require credit check.
You can also apply for the credit mode on the Olive card and no one here can predict if you’ll get one. In my case they reviewed the application for ~10 days and approved it, but on the other hand I had multiple credit cards issued by SMBC Card (which is an underwriting company for Olive) before.
Upon application for Olive, you still need to go through a normal credit card application process. There is still a possibility of getting rejected and you would probably only have 2/3 of the features available.
In my case, I couldn’t get the the VPoint to work due to the naming issue, so only 2/3 of features available to me as well (credit and debit only).