Transferring Regular Payments From the UK to Japan

[ricardo]

Do any readers have any experience/recommendations for how to make regular, medium sized (e.g. GBP2,000 per month) payments from the UK to Japan?

I have a British bank account (Santander) and Japanese bank accounts. I live in Japan (permanent resident).

I have/will have a pension paid into my British bank account every four weeks which I want to use in Japan as income.

Options, none of which seem very good:

- Make an international payment from my Santander account to my Japanese account. Fee: GBP25 every time by Santander and intermediary and recipient bank charges.

- Use my Santander debit card to withdraw the money from a Japanese ATM. Fee: 2.75% plus GBP1.50. Maximum daily withdrawal limit GBP500. No phone calls from the Japanese bank about where the money came from, no other charges

- Ask the pension provider to send the money directly to my Japanese bank account. Fee: GBP2.00 but intermediary bank and recipient bank fees ¥5,000 per transaction

- Use a company like HiFx to transfer the money to my Japanese account. Same issues as above with intermediary and bank fees, but good exchange rate

Comments welcome. Basically, how do I get my money here in Japan in the most cost-effective way? Remember, we’re talking about payments every month of relatively small amounts here so fees and charges are critical.

[RetireJapan]

Could you not batch the payments (ie do it every 2-6 months instead)? That would cut down on any fees.

Have you tried TransferWise?

[ricardo]

Yes, I could probably do it once or twice a year if really necessary. Cue the calls from my Japanese bank as the amounts will be larger...

You’re going to have the same problem when you - eventually - claim your UK state pension.

“TransferWise is an Estonian developed and UK-based money transfer service launched in January 2011 by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus.” [Wikipedia]

Right......

And it has terrible reviews (many of them on this site).

I’m leaning towards just taking the money out of the cash machine every few days ... Hard cash in my hands.

[StockBeard]

And it has terrible reviews (many of them on this site).

I have never used Transferwise so I cannot judge of their quality, however I'm wondering where you got the part in bold from.

Doing a search on this forum, I find exactly one user complaining about Transferwise, and in the thread that person opened, it got progressively clear that his problem was not with Transferwise but with his local JP bank. ( viewtopic.php?f=20&t=502 )

Other people around here who have used them seem to generally like their service. Also not sure what problems you have with the fact that they are UK based or that their founders are Estonians. The same Wikipedia page also mentions that one of the founders was one of the original creators of Skype. Sounds to me like some reasonably serious company. They were recently featured on a lot of financial websites because they are valued at multiple billions (not that it's a good indicator that they can be trusted by customers, but clearly investors believe they have a promising future).

Again, I don't have skin in the game but am worried that vague and inaccurate statements like this one could lead to a vicious circle of misinformation.

Edit: typo

[RetireJapan]

I'm a big fan of TransferWise, but have only used them to send money from Japan (to the UK, Sweden, and Singapore). Never tried it from the UK to Japan.

[robster]

I have used Transferwise repeatedly both as an individual and as a business, sending money from Ireland to Japan, from Hong Kong to Australia, etc, very smooth, transparent, no problems, low fees.

[adamu]

Bitcoin?

I understand TransferWise isn't as great for transfers to Japan, because Japanese regulations force them to require an international transfer, preventing them from being able to eliminate many of the bank/intermediary fees - one of the premises of the service.

Sorry, I don't have anything productive to add, but "regular payments from X to Japan" is probably an extremely on-topic discussion for this site as people like yourself want to collect foreign pensions, or even any income abroad that they want to use in Japan. It would be great if we could get a list of potential services as people try out various systems. Let us know how you get on.

[goodandbadjapan]

I actually used Transferwise and sent myself 3000 pounds from UK to Japan today. The rate was basically the actual exchange rate and it cost 14 pounds in fees.

I too have used Transferwise many times and the only hiccup was a Japanese bank issue - nothing to do with Transferwise, which I have always found to be excellent.

[captainspoke]

...
- Make an international payment from my Santander account to my Japanese account. Fee: GBP25 every time by Santander and intermediary and recipient bank charges.
...

If you're sure about that, it might be worth exploring some alternatives to your present banks.

It's been quite a while, but I've had large transfers come into japan without any fees/charges. (non-US origin) The destination account here in japan was shinsei, and the wires came into a US$ sub account there. There were no intermediary fees, and shinsei didn't charge anything on receipt. (And to its credit, the initiating organization didn't charge anything.)

This is just personal experience, and I do realize it would be hard to get an answer in advance from a bank here about what fees might be charged in such a situation.

My guess is that the larger the bank on each end, the closer they will be to the SWIFT system, and therefore less likely that there will be an intermediary nicking you between them. And, from my experience, shinsei does not charge a fee for receiving int'l wire transfers. Further, their sub accounts allow you to receive the funds without a necessary f/x transaction.

**

A separate note: For US persons, I've read that social security will deposit your payments worldwide (barring a few places like iran, dprk, etc).

[ricardo]

Thanks for all the comments.

I’m prepared to stand corrected on Transferwise.

I’ll go to my Japanese bank and ask precisely what, if any fees, would apply to receive an international payment in Yen. Then I’ll confirm with the pension provider (a private company, not the UK state pension which I won’t be eligible for for much longer) precisely what fees and exchange rates they would use when sending the payment.