Cheapest way using wise.com to move savings from UK to Japan

[Bubblegun]

So it looks like I can only have one WISE account, and I won't be able to transfer money from the UK to Japan.. Bummer!
Has anyone have two accounts? one here and one their native country?

You create a virtual UK bank account in your JP Wise account, then send the money there from your UK bank. Once it is in the Wise account you can convert to yen and send it to your Japanese bank.

Thank you for this info.
I’m looking into it.

Would this be what your referring to when you say
“Virtual UK bank account? The virtual card?

https://wise.com/gb/virtual-card/

[RetireJapan]

Would this be what your referring to when you say
“Virtual UK bank account? The virtual card?

https://wise.com/gb/virtual-card/

No, this: https://wise.com/jp/multi-currency-acco ... ankdetails

[imaginatorium]

This might not be directly relevant to your position, but the arrangement used to be different: I could transfer an amount directly from my UK bank account to the Wise UK account, then instruct Wise to pay it to my Shinsei account in yen.

Now this is not possible, because of some convoluted rule, probably because at some point you have to give a "Reason" for the transfer ("Transfer of own savings" or similar). So the transfer from the UK to Japan has to be between sterling accounts, then the transfer from (Wise) sterling account to yen account can ask for the "Reason". But this only applies when you make the transfer yourself. If you have overseas customers paying through Wise there are two ways: they can make the direct transfer to your (bank; e.g. Shinsei) yen account; this lets you specify the amount in yen. Or they can do a local transfer to your UK Wise account; this way is easy for casual retail customers, but you have to bear the conversion/fluctuation/手数料 costs. Presumably they do not need to give a "Reason" because they are not in Japan...

[Bubblegun]

Would this be what your referring to when you say
“Virtual UK bank account? The virtual card?

https://wise.com/gb/virtual-card/

No, this: https://wise.com/jp/multi-currency-acco ... ankdetails

Excellent sir.
1)So set up a UK virtual wise account,
2)send my money from the UK bank to the UK virtual account,( linked to my Japan account)
3)then send to all to my Japan wise account
4) then to the JP post office.

WOW. ok.
D you have a virtual account?

I wonder if this will be useful come pension time? if I manage to reach it.LOL

[RetireJapan]

D you have a virtual account?

I wonder if this will be useful come pension time? if I manage to reach it.LOL

I do. I have a UK and a US one. The main benefit is that they look like normal local bank accounts, so it is easy to arrange transfers/payments to them.

[Bubblegun]

D you have a virtual account?

I wonder if this will be useful come pension time? if I manage to reach it.LOL

I do. I have a UK and a US one. The main benefit is that they look like normal local bank accounts, so it is easy to arrange transfers/payments to them.

I set that up and that was easier than I thought as I didn't need to do any sign ups.
Although the only problem I had or should that be questions is, it doesn't tell you the exchange rate per pound before I send.

I did find the transfer super fast.

I'm still not sure if I'm sending money from the UK bank to a UK wise account.
Still a bit of a problem understanding it.

The wise link set everything up very nicely taking me to my bank etc etc.

Excellent. So I set it up in my UK bank, and then sent it to the UK WISE　account, in pounds. So I guess all I have to do now is send it to Japan and let them convert it into yen.

[Haystack]

D you have a virtual account?

I wonder if this will be useful come pension time? if I manage to reach it.LOL

I do. I have a UK and a US one. The main benefit is that they look like normal local bank accounts, so it is easy to arrange transfers/payments to them.

I'm still not sure if I'm sending money from the UK bank to a UK wise account.
Still a bit of a problem understanding it.

You need to understand firstly how Wise works, it is not really a transfer service in the traditional sense.

1. You deposit Pounds into Wise`s UK account.
2. Wise credits you for these pounds in their system.
3. You decided to convert your Pounds into Yen inside of their system.
4. You then decided to withdrawal this Yen into you JP bank account
5. Wise credits you from their own Japanese domestic account.

[imaginatorium]

Haystack said:

1. You deposit Pounds into Wise`s UK account.
2. Wise credits you for these pounds in their system.
...

I think this is very slightly wrong, but it is almost impossible to write about this stuff with 100% clarity. Step 1 normally is that you transfer money from your UK bank to your Wise UK bank account sort code and a/c number. This means you are doing a direct ("local") bank transfer to your own UK account with Wise. Then you can transfer it within the Wise system to your yen (or euro or whatever) account, from which yu can do another direct ("local") furikomi to your ordinary yen account. (The point about the "old way", is that at that time you made the UK local transfer to an account in the name of "(Transfer)Wise".)

But did you say it was easy to set up? Normally setting up the sterling account is messy, involving transferring funds in and taking funny photographs. My eldest son took months to sort it out... because the only practical way to withdraw money from National Savings is to a UK bank account in your own name, and I haven't found anyone except Wise that allows you to do this.

[Haystack]

Haystack said:

1. You deposit Pounds into Wise`s UK account.
2. Wise credits you for these pounds in their system.
...

I think this is very slightly wrong, but it is almost impossible to write about this stuff with 100% clarity. Step 1 normally is that you transfer money from your UK bank to your Wise UK bank account sort code and a/c number. This means you are doing a direct ("local") bank transfer to your own UK account with Wise. Then you can transfer it within the Wise system to your yen (or euro or whatever) account, from which yu can do another direct ("local") furikomi to your ordinary yen account. (The point about the "old way", is that at that time you made the UK local transfer to an account in the name of "(Transfer)Wise".)

But did you say it was easy to set up? Normally setting up the sterling account is messy, involving transferring funds in and taking funny photographs. My eldest son took months to sort it out... because the only practical way to withdraw money from National Savings is to a UK bank account in your own name, and I haven't found anyone except Wise that allows you to do this.

Sorry I was speaking in generalities as I am not from the UK and have only used it from Canada.

I found the process in both Japan and Canada to be very simple by modern KYC standards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer)

However my understand is in the UK post-Brexit left the European standard that was rather simple and well throughout, and now has their own more complicated system.

[RetireJapan]

I did this immediately when they created the virtual local accounts, but with an existing Japan-based Wise account, setting up the UK (and US) accounts was extremely painless.