Transfering money from Japan to Interactive Brokers LLC

[Telebroker]

BTW, I get a different IB account than you, I get an HSBC bank account:

Just to confirm, as I have just rechecked, I do get and have only dealt with the same Citibank N.A., Tokyo Branch account which mule96 already confirmed and which matches the screenshot manual from kabu-yutai.

On IBKR side, I am just wonderering whether you are looking at "[Bank Wire] Deposit" within IBLLC?
Does the HSBC account have 10 digits or potentially 7 (which may indicate a resident domestic account, as e.g. in case of IBSJ).

[RMA]

BTW, I get a different IB account than you, I get an HSBC bank account:

HONG KONG AND SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION LIMITED, Tokyo Branch
3-11-1 NIHONBASHI CHUO-KU
HSBC BUILDING
Tokyo 103-0027
Japan

But I guess that doesn't matter much.

Thanks again @mule96 !

I transferred money to this new account from SMBC on 30th June and whole process took around 1 hour and costed only JPY 800.

It took SMBC 2 days to register this new account in my profile though.

[kanpanela]

BTW, I get a different IB account than you, I get an HSBC bank account:

Just to confirm, as I have just rechecked, I do get and have only dealt with the same Citibank N.A., Tokyo Branch account which mule96 already confirmed and which matches the screenshot manual from kabu-yutai.

On IBKR side, I am just wonderering whether you are looking at "[Bank Wire] Deposit" within IBLLC?
Does the HSBC account have 10 digits or potentially 7 (which may indicate a resident domestic account, as e.g. in case of IBSJ).

@Telebroker, I do not remember the number of digits but will let you know next time I do a transfer.

Anyhow it went by fine, costing 800 yen like the others have mentioned, if that helps understanding whether or not it's a local account

[FlamingWombat]

On IBKR side, I am just wonderering whether you are looking at "[Bank Wire] Deposit" within IBLLC?
Does the HSBC account have 10 digits or potentially 7 (which may indicate a resident domestic account, as e.g. in case of IBSJ).

I just began the process of opening an IBLLC account and the current deposit info shows as below, followed by a 12(?!) digit account number:

Wire Funds to
HONG KONG AND SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION LIMITED, Tokyo Branch
3-11-1 NIHONBASHI CHUO-KU
HSBC BUILDING
Tokyo 103-0027
Japan
SWIFT/BIC Code
HSBCJPJTXXX
Bank Account Title & Address
Interactive Brokers LLC
One Pickwick Plaza
Greenwich, Connecticut 06830
United States


So I assume that IB has changed from Citibank to HSBC and the 12 digit account number somehow still works but will probably blow all bank managers' minds?

[FlamingWombat]

Yesterday I was able to add funds to my new IBLLC account at the Terebi Madoguchi at UFJ. It was pretty painless, required just a couple things for them to scan, and 800 yen. Not the best option for frequent transfers obviously, but for infrequent big transfers I will likely use it again. The staff member I conversed with completely understood the type of transaction needed and no problems witn the 12 digit account number or new(?) HSBC bank. Funds were already in my IB account when I got back home an hour or so later.

[cookiesncream]

I have found a step by step guide to how to transfer money to interactive brokers Japanese Citi bank account.
The guide is in Japanese, however if you are able to use the translate feature of google chrome it should work.

https://note.com/dorkgeeknerd/n/n4ac8bd996e16

[tokyoter]

I opened recently a broker account with IB; however I am struggling to wire JPY funds from my Shinsei Bank account to IB. From IB I received these wire instructions:

Citibank, N.A., Tokyo Branch
Otemachi Park Building, 1-1-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100-8132
Japan
SWIFT/BIC Code CITIJPJTXXX

Bank Account Title & Address
Interactive Brokers LLC
One Pickwick Plaza
Greenwich, Connecticut 06830
United States
Bank Account Number 0159170403

Wiring as a domestic transfer from Shinsei Bank to Citibank seems not to work, so I also learned now thankfully here in the blog.

But what to do ? Is Shinsei Go Remit a possibility and wire the JPY funds via international transfer to IB at the price of 2000 JPY per transaction ? Does it work at all ?

Maybe there is even a better / cheaper solution. Would be great to learn from your experiences.

[hongononeko]

I would like to share my experience with TransferWise and ask about your experience with Revolut.

I tried to send JPY to IB but it simply does not work, the system give you an error that the ammount needs to be over/under 1milJPY, I tried to hack the inputs and wrote Ithe in katakana and other codes from posts I came accross, the payment did go through at first but then it bounced back. In short, sending JPY to IB through wise doesn't work. I now convert everything to EUR and then use SIPA to move it to IB, which works flawlessly and within a day. Not ideal and it does cost me but beats dealing with the annoying MUFG booth which can take an hour, not to mention that my town doesn't have MUFH or SMBC... Also, I think this method might be cheaper than the other banks which can charge upto ~7千円 (Mizuho).

I talked with the customer rep of Revolut today and she claimed that they can move my JPY on SWIFT without any issue. I'm somewhat pessimistic and I thought I ask here for your experience before I waste time and money on this and fail.

Has anyone been able to move JPY to IB using Revolut?

Any other solutions for us folks who don't have MUFG/SMBC in their towns?

Thank you!

[Telebroker]

Hi hongononeko,

Thank you for your experience.
I am afraid it is very important be aware of all the details being relevant in the background as they will determine "go/no go".

I pretty much doubt that Revolut JPY to IBKR (=IBLLC) in JPY will work: For JPY transfers Revolut uses the Japanese Zengin system with 7 digit account numbers and NOT SWIFT. If you aim to move JPY to IBLLC's Citibank account, you will need to find a way to use SWIFT (with 10 digit account numbers).
(Revolut may work JPY to IBJP Securities (their Japanese entity which doesn't allow investing on global markets and is thus ignored here) in JPY but I understand this is not what you are looking for.

Please check my earlier post where I had described 4 ways of funding IBKR that work (earlier in this thread), among those being Revolut (but in a different setting):

3. Revolut swift JPY->USD transfer directly to IBKR's account in the US in USD
+ free up to JPY 750,000 per month (watch out in case you need to convert JPY into USD first as that counts to your free allowance as well, thus basically halfing the free allowance amount for this transaction to effectively 375,000;
- Revolut premium functionality removing such limit would otherwise be JPY 999/month;
+ can all be done within the Revolut App (from the sofa);
+ no conversion JPY-USD required on the IBKR side.
- It takes 5-7 days until the funds are cleared on IBKR side, ready for investment.
Bring patience and time (multiple days) to the table and don't give up, you are close to succeeding when you have read this!

As some time has passed, I know that similarly to Option 2 (SMBC->IBKR in JPY-JPY) stated in the earlier post, this will also work with MUFG over the Telebemadoguchi provided IBKR's Citibank N.A., Tokyo branch account were pre-registered.

Ultimately you may want to chose one of the options thoroughly tried and stated on Kabu-Yutai:
https://kabu-yutai.com/2019/07/29/post-8845/ (Use Google Chrome auto translation if too much kanji)
- with SMBC via Onlinebanking being the most convenient!

Good luck - you are close!

[hongononeko]

Thanks for this, Ive tried all these different methods and MUFJ is the cheapest although not very efficient method. Also, I dont have MUFJ in my area and have to go to Tokyo for it which is a hassle.

I was happy with transfering with Wise JPY>>>EUR>>>IB, but now it seems they have stopped that as well (they told me its due to regulation and licensing it seems). Has anyone else also experiencing similar difficulty with the JPY>>>USD>>>IB on Wise?

Japan Inc does'nt like me to retire early it seems, so many obstacles with moving hard earned cash.