Sending money to Interactive Brokers LLC - Rise in Bank Fees

[hpc1989]

Hello all,

I opened up an IBKR account last year in Japan and transferred some money from my SMBC bank account to my IBLLC account in October, it cost me 800 yen to do so and again in November. However, I transferred some money last week and my bank charged me 7000 yen. I asked them why the sudden massive increase and they said that this fee is now standard for all banks in Japan and that the fees were raised at the end of last year?

I was wondering if anyone else has had this experience? I've looked online for any news regarding fee increases and I can't see anything. The only thing I can think of is they charged me 800 yen the first few times as that is the standard amount for a transfer between banks in Japan and now this time they are charging me 7000 as they think it is for a bank outside of Japan.

I'm not really sure how the IBLLC works within Japan though? It has the Tokyo branch but also has the the American branch listed as the account address?

So basically I am asking if they were correct in charging me the 7000 yen fee this time rather than the 800 yen they charged me the first few times, and if the 7000 yen fee is the correct amount, is there a cheaper way to do it? I.e. sending the money via transferwise to my UK bank account and from there onto my IBKRLLC?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you

[RetireJapan]

I don't have an IB account myself, but I imagine the transferwise virtual US bank account could be used to send money there. Does anyone do that?

[captainspoke]

Lots of good info for this on the reddit version:

https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comm ... llc_costs/

[mule96]

I think the reddit poster an dthe person here are the same. As a summary: The Fees were increased drastically for a transfer at a counter in person, but for online transfer they should remain the same.

[usian]

I did it within the past couple of weeks and it was still 800 yen.