RetireJapan

glimmer wrote: ↑Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:35 pm Any recommendations for a business bank account?

We use Rakuten and can do everything online. It's not quite as user-friendly as UK banks but never had any major issues.

Rakuten does everything! Seems like they’re shaking up multiple industries. I will definitely check that out! Thanks!

While they have an impact, just from a shareholder point of view their stock underperforms the market since years

Well, I'll have to see how user friendly their banking website is. Personally, I find their market website to be a chaotic mess. I've only purchased one item on Rakuten through a Japanese friend, while I've purchased hundreds of items from Amazon. Just look at Amazon's stock, especially during this pandemic. The cream rises to the top. My personal key criteria for investing in a stock is some product or service that I actually want to use myself, not a trend or influenced by some expert's opinion.

SBI's net bank is pretty nice and slick. Much nicer than Rakuten's. I have both, but I use SBI. Personal account though, no idea about a business one.

I have two complaints:

* They recently renewed their android app, now it's slow to boot.
* The app mixes essential notifications with marketing notifications with no way to separate them. So I just turned off all notifications and manually check things when I need to.

Unfamiliar with SBI. I guess their Neobank branding scheme isn't catching on yet. Well, easier to remember than SBI Sumishin Net Bank. Will check that out, thanks!

Agreed. The separation of marketing vs. essential notifications and email is a major nuisance. I still don't know how or even if I can turn off marketing messages for PayPay.

Turned off all notifications for PayPay too . I give apps once chance not to spam me, then notifications go off. With Japanese apps, that happens almost immediately. I think it's a symptom of products being developed my marketing people rather than product people. They just can't resist the chance to get in your face, and there's no way for people to tell them that's a bad idea.

That's an excellent point. My solution as well. Although I wouldn't be happy to find out months later that I got hacked or some other disastrous activity that I didn't notice because I'm terrible at double checking my transaction statements.

Somewhat unrelated, but are monthly bank account statements not a thing in Japan? I asked Sony Bank and they said that I would have to pay ¥440 to get paper copies of my entire transaction history. Also, no PDF options. I guess the reason is the archaic bank book system?

Rakuten is a hit and miss to get approved. They wouldn't approve my business bank account because my personal visa was less than 3 months (they used the answer "come back with a new ID", without exactly saying it was the duration left on it). Of course, you need to setup the company before you can get the business manager visa, so it's a bit chicken and egg problem.

In the end I went to my main personal bank, SMBC. It was very smooth. They force the branch you have to apply to by physical distance from company address, but that's fine. They only required standard documents, driver ID was enough, etc... I liked the experience at the branch overall.

Website was hard to understand, it takes 4 or 5 clicks just to see your balance, free version only stores 2 months of bank statements (I have to download them every month to not lose the trace). There are no fees on tax/pension payments, and paying my salary to my own SMBC account is also free. I think only office rent has the usual fee.

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe that all Japanese banks have this 3 months visa expiration as a general rule. I encountered the exact same problem at PRESTIA, although they pointed out that reason clearly to me. I'm wondering if SMBC overlooked the visa expiration date because you already had a personal account with them?

Thanks for sharing your experience with SMBC. So they do produce monthly statements in PDF format? Absurd that they only keep 2 months' worth.