Opening an SBI NISA Account in 2020

[Moneymatters]

After receiving the same error message myself and Googling "SBI証券から正しく情報を引き継げませんでした" to understand what I need to do, this post was the only hit in all of Google! So were you able to scale the high walls of SBI? Have you been able to fund your account finally? Pray tell... I'm about ready to throw in the towel.

The only hit on that search! That’s not doing much to alleviate my persecution complex.

I was able to get things resolved with SBI Shoken over the phone. Can’t recall the exact details other than I was made to feel entirely responsible for the inconvenience. Oh. Now I recall. It was supposedly all sorted by agreeing to chop a bit off my name. Then I got an immediate call back from a supervisor sounding person (bit busier, even less chance of an apology) who wanted to go over the whole story again from the beginning.
So I started with how my parents met. You may want to delve further back into your origin story. It’s a free phone call after all. They basically resolved it over night after that and the auto application worked fine the next day.

The thing you have to remember is. If you give up. They win!

I’m currently in a battle of wills with the folk at Rakuten bank. They have no such “seamless integration” (giggles behind hand) connecting broker and bank account creation.
Evidently there was a system malfunction and they inadvertently allowed me to open a Broker account hassle free and within a week!
Enflamed by this momentary lapse in judgement on their part, they are clearly adamant I won’t be getting a bank account any time soon!

I’m funding the Rakuten broker acc with furikomi so I’m ok to play the long game with them. This only started in January so it’s still very early days. Obviously hoping it’s resolved soon(it won’t be) but simultaneously perversely intrigued by how long this could drag out.

[Kanto]

I’m currently in a battle of wills with the folk at Rakuten bank. They have no such “seamless integration” (giggles behind hand) connecting broker .

I am very thankful to the Yucho clerk who decided to jam my first and middle names together when I first arrived in Japan. As this is what all brokers do, it actually makes things much easier.

I would recommend Monex. Their application process was a breeze. You cannot apply fully online as a foreigner, but they send you a mostly completed form you need to stamp and sign. Then return with ID.

In their signup process, they ask you to list your full English name separate from your name as written on your documents and bankbook. This shows they are aware of the differences.

Rakuten was not as easy a setup, but still decent. They did call me in person and grill me about awareness of risk and loss of principal etc etc. Apparently, if you don`t "よし" in the right spots they deny your application. Monex did not do this.

[ToushiTime]

Ben, I've just had an idea. Maybe you could create a pinned topic where people could vote for the brokers and write reviews as well?
If I knew how bad SBI was, I would never open an account with them.

So far I have found Rakuten Securities more flexible than SBI Securities and more helpful in terms of accommodating gaijin names.
As for customer service, I would say there isn't much between them. Most operators are good. Sometimes you get a dud or an obnoxious one.
One snooty operator at SBI had to call me back as she had made a mistake

[Teflon]

After receiving the same error message myself and Googling "SBI証券から正しく情報を引き継げませんでした" to understand what I need to do, this post was the only hit in all of Google! So were you able to scale the high walls of SBI? Have you been able to fund your account finally? Pray tell... I'm about ready to throw in the towel.

The only hit on that search! That’s not doing much to alleviate my persecution complex.

I was able to get things resolved with SBI Shoken over the phone. Can’t recall the exact details other than I was made to feel entirely responsible for the inconvenience. Oh. Now I recall. It was supposedly all sorted by agreeing to chop a bit off my name. Then I got an immediate call back from a supervisor sounding person (bit busier, even less chance of an apology) who wanted to go over the whole story again from the beginning.
So I started with how my parents met. You may want to delve further back into your origin story. It’s a free phone call after all. They basically resolved it over night after that and the auto application worked fine the next day.

The thing you have to remember is. If you give up. They win!

Wow... okay! I won't give up. You've inspired me! But unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese well enough to feel comfortable with phoning their customer service staff who probably speak entirely in extremely verbose rapid fire keigo. Instead, I need to rely on Google translate and a Japanese girlfriend to get things done. So instead of phoning SBI I went directly to their banking site which is apparently called "NeoBank", here: https://www.netbk.co.jp/contents/

At the top of that page, on the right, is a large box that says "Open an account immediately! Completed online! No mail required" which seemed promising. I clicked on that link and completed the form with identical information to what I had entered on my SBI Securities paper application that came in the mail last month. I was pleasantly surprised that NeoBank's interface is much more modern and user friendly than the SBI Securities interface (think 2010 vs 1997) and everything went smoothly.

Then I received a confirmation email from NeoBank with the following guidance:

This time you applied by opening an online account, but at our discretion, your application will be treated as an application by mail. We will send you a set of application documents in about a week. Please check the printed contents of the account opening application form. Please fill in the required items and mail it with the required documents enclosed.

So I guess I will be waiting at least another month to get this sorted out. I really hope the system at NeoBank automatically recognizes that I already have an active account with SBI Securities so that I don't have to send in all my identity documents again. I won't hold my breath.

[Moneymatters]

unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese well enough to feel comfortable with phoning their customer service staff who probably speak entirely in extremely verbose rapid fire keigo. Instead, I need to rely on Google translate and a Japanese girlfriend to get things done.
...

Get on Amazon and get your GF a voice synthersizer to impersonate you. Even if it's Darth Vader this will be the quickest way to resolve this.

I really hope the system at NeoBank automatically recognizes that I already have an active account with SBI Securities so that I don't have to send in all my identity documents again.

"system", "automatically" these words are heresy to the traditionalists in SBI. Let's remember, you were just told to make a paper application for a bank account. If they could get away with having an essay question as part of the application I'm sure they would! Now I'm worried they have someone checking these posts and I'm giving them ideas!

Obviously, I can't claim to know the internal "workings" of the various SBI entites but "automatically recognize" seems to be reserved exclusively for "Foreign applicant detected! Activate cloaking device and warp factor nine outta-here.."

I highly doubt it, but maybe there is a place on the form asking about linking to a broker account. Or once logged into your NetBank a nice looking icon to just click and effortlessly link to your a broker account.
BTW, I'm sure you will be be required to send all your identifying docs as part of the initial snail mail application.

Sadly, in either eventuality, the only outcome I envisage is the same naming mismatch that triggered their proximity sensors last time.

Sticking with the sci-fi analogies. These aren't the Engineers from Prometheus you are dealing with. More like the crew from Space Balls.

Keep us posted

[Teflon]

Obviously, I can't claim to know the internal "workings" of the various SBI entites but "automatically recognize" seems to be reserved exclusively for "Foreign applicant detected! Activate cloaking device and warp factor nine outta-here.."

Hahaha! Thank you for the funny post! It has seriously lowered my frustration levels and brightened my day.

Now I have some good news for once. Buried deep in the bowels of the SBI Securities web site is the option to use furikomi to transfer money to your SBI Securities account from your regular bank account. For those unaware of this feature, here are the steps to take (and I'm using the native Japanese on the site plus the Google translated version for easy reference):

1. From the Home page, click on "入金" [Deposit/Payment]
2. From the Payment instructions page, scroll to the bottom of the page to "銀行振込入金" [Bank Transfer]
3. In the Bank Transfer box, click the gray button: "振込用口座の確認" [Confirmation of Transfer Account]
4. At this point you are taken to a page where you can choose from three banks: SMBC, MUFG, or Mizuho. Choose one.
5. Accept all the confirmation of application agreements.
6. Finally, there will be a window that says after 15 minutes, follow a confusing series of links that tell you ABSOLUTELY NOTHING related to the account details.

Instead, after much trial and error, I found that I needed to repeat the first three steps again, as follows:

1. From the Home page, click on "入金" [Deposit/Payment]
2. From the Payment instructions page, scroll to the bottom of the page to "銀行振込入金" [Bank Transfer]
3. In the Bank Transfer box, click the gray button: "振込用口座の確認" [Confirmation of Transfer Account]
4. If you waited 15 minutes since your application, you should now see the bank you chose populated with the branch/account details for furikomi transfer.

That's it!

Now for the bad news. This procedure comes with one terrifying caveat:

お客様により振込先の支店及び口座番号が異なりますのでご注意ください。
証券口座と異なる名義の銀行口座からのお振込手続きは、入金処理が行われません。

Transfer procedures from a bank account with a different name from the securities account will not be processed.
In that case, the customer is requested to reassemble, but please note that the reassembly fee will be borne by the customer.

I have no idea what "reassemble" means in this context but sending a large chunk of cash to SBI only to have it stuck in reassembly limbo is a bit unnerving. In any event, I decided to bite the bullet and sent off 100,000 yen from my Shinsei account. In the "Remitter" section I put the same name as my SBI account which is in the form: ＬＡＳＴ　ＦＩＲＳＴ　ＭＩＤＤＬＥ
That's full-width of course. Shinsei actually notes that any half-width characters will be translated to full-width on the fly and any lower-case will be translated to uppercase but I didn't want to take any chances.

If this doesn't work and my money is stuck in "reassembly" limbo then I will have to get the girlfriend involved and resort to the Darth Vader option.

I will report back tomorrow. Wish me luck!

[adamu]

お客様により振込先の支店及び口座番号が異なりますのでご注意ください。
証券口座と異なる名義の銀行口座からのお振込手続きは、入金処理が行われません。

Transfer procedures from a bank account with a different name from the securities account will not be processed.
In that case, the customer is requested to reassemble, but please note that the reassembly fee will be borne by the customer.

I think you missed a line of the Japanese, because the 2nd line of the Japanese is the same as the first line of the English translation. There's nothing about reassembly.

I decided to bite the bullet and sent off 100,000 yen from my Shinsei account. In the "Remitter" section I put the same name as my SBI account which is in the form: ＬＡＳＴ　ＦＩＲＳＴ　ＭＩＤＤＬＥ

I think I used to do this back when I had a Shinsei account, but it was years ago and my parents were prescient enough to not give me a middle name.

[Teflon]

Oh! You are right. I copied and pasted the wrong bullet. The section that I meant to paste is here:

その場合は、お客様にて組戻しをお願いいたしますが、組戻し手数料はお客様のご負担となりますのでご了承ください。
In that case, the customer is requested to reassemble, but please note that the reassembly fee will be borne by the customer.

By the way, the transfer has gone through already. I was very surprised to see 100,000 yen already in my SBI account. That's a huge relief! Now I just need to figure out how to invest it.

[Moneymatters]

By the way, the transfer has gone through already. I was very surprised to see 100,000 yen already in my SBI account. That's a huge relief! Now I just need to figure out how to invest it.

Congratulations. Being able to fund the account potentially gives you several years to master Japanese and prepare for that phone call to link the Broker and Bank account.

I've also have some huge news! Rakuten Bank finally emailed me after 2.5 months to tell me what is wrong with my resident card!

Apparently, the period of validity for the card is not visible! Fair enough. These things are notoriously easy to scratch, especially given the number of times I've needed to copy it in the past year.

So I pulled it out to view the damage. And sure enough there is a less than showroom quality number 3 buried in there. Which I must confess, at just the right angle could possibly be confused with an 8.

Of course, that would make my card expire on either the 80th or the 81st of the month.
But what do I know. It's highly possible there are 80+ days in the Rakuten calendar. I know it certainly feels like it at times.

Oh. And they've asked me to correct my name. Again. Interesting. As not being able to enter your own name correctly after repeated attempts would likely preclude you from gettting your own bank account in any another country.

Question:

My 在留カード will expire later this year. If I go and get a replacement card right now, what will the expiry date of the replacement card be?

I'm hoping seven years from now.

[adamu]

Question:

My 在留カード will expire later this year. If I go and get a replacement card right now, what will the expiry date of the replacement card be?

I'm hoping seven years from now.

The same day as the expiry of your residence status, or 7 years from the day you renew it if your residency status doesn't expire (don't quote me on the second one). You can apply for a renewal up to two months in advance. Although if its unusable due to wear and tear, they can re-issue the same card before the expiry with the same credentials (they did this once for me when the chip stopped working).