SONY Bank - Time Deposits

[Owl]

Can you do foreign currency Time Deposits at SONY?

I couldn't find any relevant info on their website. Is the account limited to holding foreign currency and FX transactions?

[Beaglehound]

Not that I am aware of. They do offer interest of varying amounts on the currencies they support. Just click on the relevant currency in the link:

https://moneykit.net/en/guide/fc/

Be aware that, unlike yen deposits, cash held in foreign currency is not protected up to 10m yen in case of bank failure.

[ClearAsMud]

Here is the Japanese-language page describing Sony Bank's foreign-currency time deposits, available in the same 12 currencies as for regular fx accounts. You can use yen from your regular account to fund an fx time deposit (minimum of 100,000 yen), or simply use existing foreign-currency deposits to do so (apparently a minimum of 600USD for that currency). You'd want to check out all the details before committing yourself.

Sony also offers what they call a セット定期: a time deposit consisting of a yen portion combined with a foreign-currency portion (USD, AUD, NZD or ZAR only, apparently). The [edit: maximum] rate offered for a 3-month USD-JPY combination seems to be 30.01%, but again, you'd have to review the details to make sure that you understand how it works (there's apparently a 1 million yen combined minimum deposit).

[Owl]

Here is the Japanese-language page describing Sony Bank's foreign-currency time deposits, available in the same 12 currencies as for regular fx accounts. You can use yen from your regular account to fund an fx time deposit (minimum of 100,000 yen), or simply use existing foreign-currency deposits to do so (apparently a minimum of 600USD for that currency). You'd want to check out all the details before committing yourself.

Sony also offers what they call a セット定期: a time deposit consisting of a yen portion combined with a foreign-currency portion (USD, AUD, NZD or ZAR only, apparently). The [edit: maximum] rate offered for a 3-month USD-JPY combination seems to be 30.01%, but again, you'd have to review the details to make sure that you understand how it works (there's apparently a 1 million yen combined minimum deposit).

Thanks. I contacted SONY and they confirmed they do FX TDs ... but they don't "advertise" on the English website or deal with English enquiries about TDs
which run through the Japanese help desk. They need some new managers at this bank! It seems the rates they offer on vanilla TDs are slightly better than Prestia but lower than SBI Shinsei.

[tokyolights]

Has anyone here done time deposits before and was happy with the result? I argued in my own blog before that they're usually not a good choice, but I'd love to learn whether there's actual benefits to it.

[Tsumitate Wrestler]

Has anyone here done time deposits before and was happy with the result? I argued in my own blog before that they're usually not a good choice, but I'd love to learn whether there's actual benefits to it.

I wonder, depends on if you need the currency or not. For USD there are lots of options.

For instance, there is a 1-3 month Us treasury bond index etf demoniated in yen that launches on the TSE at the end of the month. That would probably be preferable to me.

https://money-bu-jpx.com/news/article048915/