Best bank for online banking as a student?

Hi all!

I was wondering if anyone could share any advice and personal experiences about which bank I should open an account with. I’m here on a student visa for a year and have been managing fine without a Japanese bank account so far, but I’ve recently been chosen to receive JASSO scholarship by my university (yay!) and one of the requirements is to open one.

Mostly, I want to make sure the bank I open an account with is good in terms of online banking. I don’t know a lot about banks in Japan in general, so I’m not sure if there are any particular banks or account types I should avoid in this case. In Japan I primarily use Revolut, so it would be nice to find a bank that I can easily transfer funds to and from using it.

While I get by with Japanese, my kanji skills aren’t amazing so an option to bank in English as well as/instead of Japanese would also be great to avoid any confusion/disasters.

(and, as a little side question, do I as a foreigner need a hanko to open an account? different sources are giving me different answers and it seems to vary depending on the bank. and, since I’m a foreigner and the hanko wouldn’t be in kanji, am I right in thinking I don’t need one of the more elaborate/intentionally hard-to-read ones? I’ve seen these recommended online for banking but most of the sources I’ve seen assume you have a kanji name, so I just want to be sure).

Thanks so much in advance!

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