Best banks in Japan

[captainspoke]

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I tentatively have Shinsei (despite its recent decline), ...

One question I would ask is whether shinsei has really "declined" or not. Yes, they have added some fees, and I guess you now have to use their Gaica card to withdraw funds overseas (vs previously using your bank card).

They've been less than popular these days because of those things, but from my POV and needs, nothing has really changed. Importantly, there has been absolutely no change in the level or quality of the service I receive.

(1) They've never been the bank that I use for auto-deductions (utilities, visa card)--only to do occasional domestic transfers for irregular bills and other things. Pre-retirement, some of my salary was deposited there without ever any problem.

(2) I never used the old card overseas, and have no reason to go the Gaica route (schwab card is superior to both). So for this, who cares?

(3) I made 2-3 overseas transfers with them for years (to the US), and never a hint of delay or trouble. They're big, and well-connected to the int'l system, so those transfers went thru very directly--never any intermediary fees. I've also sometimes received money from overseas (no fee at the time), and those dollars simply stayed in dollars in a sub account.

(4) I have enough money there that in/outbound wire transfers were--and still are--free (as are domestic transfers). So again, who cares? From my POV nothing has changed. (And this is something that was/is important for me, and which tends to be left out of bank reviews focused on consumer banking--I read a lot about minimums, 'free' ATM use, # of transfers, etc., while not many reviewers include details about int'l transfers when comparing other banks.)

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With all the flak they've taken recently, I have tried to follow the positive points being made about the other major banks, and the online banks, too. Given that commentary, and how I use shinsei, I've yet to see anything that would make me consider changing.

[adamu]

Nice, a thread where SBI is getting more love than Rakuten.

I have accounts at lots of banks, and SBI is by far the one I'm happiest with so far. Rakuten were so pushy and spammy with their happy program, I gave up on them pretty quickly.

Shinsei is worth it if you need English, being the only service to offer English as far as I know. Otherwise, my preference would be SBI. Petronius said it better that I could.

I am also changing from Shinsei to 住信SBIネット銀行
The last nail in the coffin was the need for their Gaica card to withdraw abroad.

Having my NISA and IDECO with SBI already that makes everything easier.
On top of what has been said in a previous post (7 free ATM withdrawals, 7 free wire transfers, ATM abroad with cash card) I also find the virtual accounts features very useful.
You can create a bunch of virtual accounts and save money on them. For example I have one for emergency fund, one for my real estate taxes, one for travels etc. I transfer money on them every month and you can have a nice overview on their online platform.

You can also automate wire transfers to and from external banks, which I couldn't do with Shinsei.

I would add that Shinsei was the only bank I used (although I've not checked it for a while) that didn't support the "name back" service that allows you to send bank transfers without having to reproduce the exact half-width katakana account name, and fills it in automatically for you.

One benefit of going with a big one like UFJ, Mizuho, or SMBC is that that because they have so many customers, online sign-ups for things like automatic credit card or gas payments usually support them. For less popular ones (including SBI and Shinsei), you often need to post in the physical signup form.

[retiregem]

I know a lot of people recommend Shinsei for certain reasons, but for doing daily stuff in Japan I would say SBI Net bank is really good. The website is in Japanese, but it's very clean and they have a mobile app. This is way better than the local bank where I live out in the countryside.

[Ryuuku]

Hey, bit of a daft question for "the best bank".
What bank/account do you recommend for a purely savings account?
I've seen most people recommend Shinsei bank for all the reasons (ease of use, transfers out of Japan, etc.) but I'm just interested in which bank has the best interest rate for a savings account. I've seen foreign banks with an APY upwards 1.9% (Goldman Sachs USA) or even 2% (PurePoint). But looking for anything similar in Japan, the highest I can find is about 0.3%. What gives? Am I looking in the wrong places?

I want to have an account for my income, general expenses, etc. then another account for investing (Tsumitate NISA, iDeCo, personal investing account). and another account that I basically don't want to touch (with a high interest rate) with monthly deposits to keep as my emergency fund.

[RetireJapan]

Interest rates are very low in Japan. You'd have to use a foreign currency account, probably in another country, to do that (with all the exchange rate and regulatory risk that entails).

[Ryuuku]

Yeah, I don't want to make anything difficult for myself. The whole point of opening these accounts is to make things as simple as possible. So it seems, I'm not looking in the wrong places, Japan just doesn't have any banks that have high-interest savings accounts then? That really sucks... Day and day I'm reminded just how behind Japan is compared to the rest of the world.

[ricardo]

Japan isn’t “behind” - it just has low interest rates due to the prevailing economic situation.

Low interest rates are great for borrowers, though. Home loans are especially cheap.

[mule96]

That doesn't have anything to do with Japan being behind or whatever. In this case they are probably even more "advanced". Interests on saving accounts are heavily influenced by the central bank interest rates. Since the last 10 years (and also most of the time in the 2000), they hover around 0% (currently -0.1%).

The same can be seen currently in Europe, where the interest rates are also low since some time and interest rates on savings are diminishing.

On the other hand this is also the reason, why credits/loans for example for houses are incredible cheap now.

[adamu]

Interest rates are effectively 0 for cash deposits. Add inflation, and your cash savings lose money (i.e. it costs money to keep it in cash).

Because of this, it makes sense to decide how much you want to keep in cash, and be happy in the knowledge that the cost is worth it for security that provides. Then invest the rest, with the hope that it'll make you money, and the knowledge that you have your cash for backup when you need it.

Since this thread is about banks: Because you can't get interest for cash deposits, the interest rate shouldn't be a deciding factor when you chose a bank account.

[Ryuuku]

Sorry if I sounded rude when I said "Japan is behind" in regards to interest rates. It's obviously something more complicated than I'm able to understand, I just thought it was the case as Japan (generally speaking) just seems to be catching up to the rest of the world for things such as online banking, account apps, moving away from cashbook system, free ATMs, 24-hr ATMs, etc. (Among other things not related to banking, such as phone carriers, but I digress).

Interest rates are effectively 0 for cash deposits. Add inflation, and your cash savings lose money (i.e. it costs money to keep it in cash).
...
Because you can't get interest for cash deposits, the interest rate shouldn't be a deciding factor when you chose a bank account.

I wasn't talking about deposits, but rather yearly interest given. As far as I'm aware the yearly inflation rate is somewhere around 0.2% (though conservatively could be as high as 0.4% (Source:https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/inflation-cpi) and I'd rather have an account which gave me interest and then some (if possible) to avoid losing money via inflation by keeping it safe in the account, if that makes sense.