International Money Transfers!

[berkaz6370]

I have the intention to transfer $50.000 from my BofA account into to my SMBC account. Previously, I used the BofA app to transfer my money. Once the funds arrive from the US, I would get a call from my Japanese Bank who then would charge me an extra 5000 Yen to get my funds deposited on my SMBC account. I checked this morning the transfer rate when $1 was at 137 Yen and the transfer rate with BofA would only give me 132.5 Yen per $1. I am just wondering if there is a better way to transfer my funds. Does anyone has any experience sending US dollars to Japan via platforms such as Wise, Xe, etc... Thank you in advance for your advise.

[captainspoke]

First and foremost -- do not have any american bank do the currency conversion for you. (esp not local/regional banks)

So send US$, and send that to a US$ sub account here. And to be clear, it should be a US$ transfer all the way, from your US bank, thru the international system, and be deposited into a US$ sub account here in japan. THEN, do the currency conversion here.

It's been quite a while, but Shinsei did not charge me anything for inbound transfers. I've rec'd US$ there without any fees subtracted at all. Sony bank is probably the same. And both allow sub accounts in various non-¥ currencies.

I'm guessing, but explore not using your banking app. Call BoA directly and set up an international wire transfer. (again, to be done all in US$) Ask your bank here (SMBC?), to clarify, what their charge is for inbound wire transfers--that will be coming in US$ to a US$ sub account. If it is still ¥5000, you might consider opening an account at sony/shinsei. (and check with them, to clarify the same point)

Look here, scroll down to Handling Money, and then click on Transfers. Just reverse the process. https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanFinance/wiki/index

[berkaz6370]

Thank You Very Much For Taking The Time To Reply To My Add. Much Appreciated!

[sutebayashi]

I do not see a mention of using forex brokers to do the actual currency conversion, but using them can make a big difference for large amounts.

Specially, YJFX! (now GMO 外貨ex) And CentralTanshi FX both will accept deposits in foreign currency, so once you get your money there, you can do the fx conversion with a typical fx transaction rate spread.

Banks will often have a much wider spread, even if they say their cost is “free”, so if you use the forex brokers to do the conversion, it is much cheaper for you (you end up with more money).

This site has a lot of info about this but is somewhat hard to navigate.
http://kaigaisokin.seesaa.net/

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At the same time, this is extra hassle and the fx rates might move favourably for you anyway… but this is an option I opted to use in the past.

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Edited to note YJFX! was bought by GMO

[Self]

Same type of question, but wondering about sending money from an account in Canada to an account in Japan.

It seems a little complex with sub-accounts and whatnot. I don't even know what that means.

I contacted one bank in Canada and they said they could only allow me to transfer $2500/day, and my other bank says $6500. I would like to send more like $30,000 to myself, so both of these options seem strange.

I looked into "Wise", but they won't allow me to transfer my money in Canada to Japan because I live in Japan.

What would be a simple, yet not expensive, way to send my money in a regular bank account in Canada to my regular bank account in Japan?

Sorry for my naiveness.

[sutebayashi]

That’s weird that your Canadian bank would say you can’t transfer more than a few thousand bucks… can that be correct? If you have the money I should think you should be able to have your bank wire the money, irrespective of the amount, more or less…

This is Japanese, but for 30,000 grand, if you can get it to Japan, receiving the cash at Prestia and converting it at a forex broker would give you the most cash in hand, but with hassles of opening those accounts:
http://kaigaisokin.seesaa.net/article/84803968.html

But getting the money sent from the Canada side seems to be the main thing to resolve…