Digital banks

[Michel]

Hello,

I am looking at opening a digital bank account in order to put my emergency fund in there (rather than a brick and mortar bank as the rates are ridiculously low).

However I can't seem to find a proper list of digital banks in Japan.
So I was wondering if you could help me coming up with a list so I could compare their services (I am however leaning towards Rakuten).

Also out of curiosity which one did you choose and why? (Then again Rakuten seems to be the most popular in here for the ability to link your ideco account).

Any information is welcome, I am not expecting one person to do a whole list for me but together I would appreciate any help!
Thanks!

[Petronius]

I use SBI, because that's where I have both my IDECO and NISA.
There is also Sony bank
I used Jibun bank in the past
7eleven, popular with chinese as it seems that they can easily send money back home
Shinsei could be considered an online bank too and they are pretty good if you have the gold status

[Sybil]

All Internet and regular banks in Japan offer 'ridiculously low' interest rates. Accessibility is the main criteria for 'emergency' savings. Unless your emergency funds are in the millions (dollars not yen) I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[Michel]

All Internet and regular banks in Japan offer 'ridiculously low' interest rates.

Fair enough, all things considered they have always offered low rates, nothing I should be surprised about. As far as I know, digital banks do provide a slightly higher rate though, better than nothing I think (even if the point of this account isn't to make any major returns obviously)

Accessibility is the main criteria for 'emergency' savings.

This is definitely the most important point. We never know what can happen and when, so it needs to be available at anytime. When I look at Shinsei bank closing for the year end holidays for example, making it unavailable even at ATMs, you better hope that you do not get any emergencies during that time. Obviously you would organize things around it to avoid any problems, but the point here is to simplify things as much as possible.

Which makes me wonder, are there any downtime recurring in those digital banks? (Website maintenance, consequently unable to transfer money or access it ...?)

[Sybil]

I usually have at least 100,000 yen in cash on hand. Also I have 4 or 5 bank accounts in Japan. So I don't worry about have access to cash. Some people seem over-dependent on credit cards which I don't like.

[Michel]

I use SBI, because that's where I have both my IDECO and NISA.
There is also Sony bank
I used Jibun bank in the past
7eleven, popular with chinese as it seems that they can easily send money back home
Shinsei could be considered an online bank too and they are pretty good if you have the gold status

I came across jibun bank yesterday, didn't look too deep into them yet.
Thank you for the listing!

[Michel]

This link here ranks the different digital banks by the rates they provide:

https://diamond.jp/articles/-/112054

[adamu]

Even the best paying bank (Aeon according to that link) is still only paying 0.1% minus tax. And it'll be a loss leader, so I doubt they'll maintain the lead for more than a year. With rates so low, I don't think the interest should be the primary factor in your choice of bank.

[Utachiyo]

I decided to go with Rakuten, but opening a bank account with them takes FOREVER. I don't know if it's the same with other online banks. From filling out an account request on their site to finally getting my account information and cash card...took a month, at least. They send something to you and it doesnt come for two weeks....you send some form to them and they don't get back to you for another two weeks.... And in order to set up something so I can send money from my postal bank account to my Rakuten account for free...yeah, still in the process of that. Takes about a month, it would seem.

I also decided to set up an account for my daughter (just for the miniscule amount of extra interest). After sending in the ID documentation, I didn't hear from them for over three weeks! I called to see if maybe something got lost in the mail, but it turns out they had questions about my daughter's citizenship (I marked American citizen on the account request online). Why did they wait so long to ask such an important question??? I answered their mail about that (dual citizen, no visa or foreign registration card) but I'm still waiting for a reply.

[Michel]

I will probably go with Rakuten as well, I'm about to open my ideco account and it just seems more convenient to have it all centralized in one place.