Best in class


We’ve been meaning to write a post like this for a while now, to discuss the best financial products and providers available in Japan.

This is just an initial list. I can see this becoming a regular feature, with intense competition for the top spot in the list each year πŸ˜‰

Just to get us started, here is a rough initial list with some candidates for some of the categories:

Current account: I’m a big fan of Shinsei Bank. They have a decent website and you can do almost everything online. You get a couple of free transfers every month. You can take money out of ATMs in Japan and abroad without paying fees.

Savings account: any suggestions?

Mortage provider: when I was shopping for a mortgage last year the best options seemed to be smaller, regional banks. I ended up getting a mortgage with Shonai Bank, based in Yamagata.

Broker: Monex seems to have the widest range of products, while SBI and Rakuten also seem decent options.

NISA account: Monex for the range of options.

iDeCo account:Β SBI seems to have the widest range of funds.

Robo-advisor: THEO for ease of use, but WealthNavi claims to do tax-loss harvesting (this would make it a more valuable service).

International money transfer: TransferWise for ease of use and low fees.

Credit card: I use JAL/ANA cards to maintain my status with them. United cards seem to be good for casual air miles. Any other good options?

Debit card: LINE Pay seems promising (2% cashback).

Electricity provider: I looked at this before, but didn’t find anything compelling.

Internet provider: I’m not happy with NTT, but haven’t found anything better. Sony’s service looks good, but is not available in Tohoku.

Private health insurance: any suggestions?

Life insurance: any suggestions?

Accident/liability insurance: any suggestions?

Car insurance: any suggestions?

P2P loans: Maneo seems popular.

Cryptocurrency: I’ve been using bitflyer. Happy so far.

Phew. This should be a start. Any other categories we should consider? Any other contenders for top product in an existing category?

14 Responses

  1. Ben, Nice list, but, how about Legal Insurance? Can you join a Group Insurance Policy at your University? Since I retired last Dec I have continued to pay about Β£25 per month into a Group Insurance Scheme with my old employer, that provides me with Legal Insurance (Building & Contents, Motor & Travel up to 30 days), plus Euro wide RAC cover. You never know when you will need a Barrister to get you out of the Proverbial, and it saves me paying for seperate Legal cover every time I travel or buy Home & Motor Insurance. What is available in Japan?

    1. Hi Mark
      We have liability insurance for our family because my wife runs her own business, but I don’t think it’s as prevalent here as in some other countries.

  2. Life insurance: I’ve found Rakuten and Orix to be probably the best (low-priced) options for term insurance.
    Fire insurance etc for your house: ιƒ½ζ°‘ε…±ζΈˆ
    Internet: Very very happy with my Nuro connection. Very fast, rock solid and roughly Y3500 a month includes a landline.

  3. For internet in some apartments, like mine, JCom is amazing. Cheap, fast, took two *hours* to get it going from the time I ordered it (on the day I moved in, during a typhoon). I mean, I ordered it at 1PM and was perfectly online by 3PM. Incredible experience, and good customer service so far.
    NTT has such bad customer service and a high price, so I must caution against using them if possible (but they are fast and widely available).

    1. Just to add a data point, my inlaws had J:Com previously and the service was atrocious. Not that cheap, slow and unreliable. It’s the main reason I started looking for another provider, and luckily found Nuro.

      1. Rub it in, why don’t you, DA. I spend more time resetting my modem/router than using the internet…
        My granddaughter is not very understanding about it either!
        Would love to find a decent option in Sendai.

  4. Cryptocurreny:
    Bitflyer is good, BUT
    Zaif is the cheapest by far with the best spread of rates too. Better deposit options and cheaper CC rates if you just must buy in during a sudden dip and don’t have cash in your account.
    Coincheck is kinda pricey. They don’t offer limit orders of any alt coins, but they offer more altcoins than any of the 11 Japense exhanges. Ripple, Dash, Monero. They offer most of the top 10 crypto coins.
    Ease of use (English support, speed, website)
    1. Bitflyer
    2. Coincheck
    3. Ziaf
    Fees/price spread
    1. Zaif
    2. Coincheck
    3. Bitflyer
    Coin offerings
    1. Coincheck (13 coins)
    2. Bitflyer (6 coins)
    3. Zaif (4 coins) (with a 5th, COMSA, that launched this week – exclusive to Zaif for now)
    There are a 8 other registered exchanges in Japan, but they are much smaller and with little to no English. Most only sell Bitcoin. I can’t even track them all down. I know there are 11, but can even only find 8 of the 11.

    1. Bought last week. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin.
      Post in the new year (it’s not going to make me look good) πŸ˜‰

    2. I can’t give you sound advice. Becuase its based on speculation and FOMO. But I have done some research. And I’ve made really good money. I am not buying into IOTA. Too hard to buy from Japan. Haven’t bought I’m Cardaino. Same story. Bitcoin gold and Bitcoin cash are scam coins. Run by the wrong people simply to make money. So you have BTC, ETH, LTC, DASH, XEM, Ripple, Monero (and some smaller Japan only coins like Mona and COMSA). Pretty much the rest of the top ten that arnt out right scam coins. They are not all free of sin. Dash had a scammy pre mine. Ripple is tied to the banks. Does that bother you? I made 25% profit in 16 hours with my first Ripple invesment just this morning.
      Check out https://coinmarketcap.com
      Good place to get a good overall view of the market. The head to forums and places like Reddit to see what the community thinks. There is lots of noise. Lots of b.s. lots of jokes and memes and lots of shilling. But comb through that and there are some good posts on why a coin is good or maybe bad or what great expose of the market or a certain coin.

  5. thank you for so much.
    Looking forward to reading more about the new tsumitate NIsA and how
    does it really work, financial
    products and providers
    and more about cryptocurrency, please. do you have a book?
    thank you again.

    1. Hi Ze
      We have books on iDeCo and NISA (click on the pages on the site). Nothing else so far, but more in the works πŸ™‚