RetireJapan

So the deal with SMBC TB Prestia is to only use them for sending money, be it in JPY, USD, EUR etc.
You pay the flat transfer fee for the overseas transfer, and that’s it.

But do not have them do the forex conversion part for you.

As for the forex conversion part, the cheaper (but convoluted way) is to transfer your money from your bank to an fx broker that supports actual settlement, conversion of forex trades. Examples I know of are YJFX! (now GMO 外貨ex) And Central Tanshi FX.

Let’s assume you are doing a JPY to XYZ conversion and sending XYZ overseas.

First, you deposit your JPY to the forex broker.

You need to make a forex trade to sell JPY / buy XYZ, and you can do this when you are happy with the market rate - the forex brokers offer properly thin spreads of just a pip or two. This is why doing it with forex brokers is cheaper for larger amounts of money.

In a normal fx trade, you would close the position you opened, and make a profit/loss in JPY terms.
But here what you do instead is use your JPY itself to close the trade, and get your actual XYZ in return, instead of JPY.

Then withdraw the XYZ funds from the forex broker to Prestia.

Then have Prestia remit the XYZ overseas, for the flat fee.

This is certainly NOT the easiest way to do it, but basically the cost is only the flat fee cost of Prestia remitting the funds, plus a forex brokers spread on the fx trade. (This may seem overrated since the currency might have moved by 50 pips a day later anyway… but hey why give banks the money?!)

The other thing is, you can open your forex trades in advance if you like… say you think the rate is favourable now in Sept but don’t want to remit until some months later. Then, you can open the forex trade now, keep it open (typically earn some carry points since the JPY has such low interest rates) but only close it by delivering the full JPY amount later.

Thanks! Many years ago I looked at foreign-based FX brokers and found their spreads were worse than what Shinsei offered. But the spreads advertised on those two services you mentioned are remarkable.Guess times have moved on

I received a letter from SMBC Trust bank that suggests they are in the process of devaluing their current Prestia gold member benefits in the name of service renewal. Seems one has to also have 3 million yen in average monthly wealth management balance as a new requirement in addition to the old requirement of having10 million yen in average monthly relationship balance to remain with Prestia gold status. They made this change suddenly on 14 April. I don't know how long I will remain with gold status but their mutual funds etc. don't appeal to me.

regular wrote: ↑Wed Apr 19, 2023 4:22 am I received a letter from SMBC Trust bank that suggests they are in the process of devaluing their current Prestia gold member benefits in the name of service renewal. Seems one has to also have 3 million yen in average monthly wealth management balance as a new requirement in addition to the old requirement of having10 million yen in average monthly relationship balance to remain with Prestia gold status. They made this change suddenly on 14 April. I don't know how long I will remain with gold status but their mutual funds etc. don't appeal to me.

I saw this too. It's a real mess for any US clients because we can't use those mutual funds. The whole point of locking up that 10 million yen in their effectively 0 interest account was to get the exchange rate and international transfer benefits that came with the "Gold" member benefits and they are making this change right as the opportunity cost from not having funds in US bank accounts with their 4%+ interest rates has jumped up. I'm thinking of draining my Prestia account and keeping higher balances in the US banks instead to offset the higher transfer fees going forward.

What an utter mess of communications. First I read the message on my mobile and couldn't understand their webpage on the mobile site. Then I came here and it reminded me to check again. Now I read it on PC and still can't really understand the changes.

Wow, I just logged on and my (chunky) tax payment on 24th April is already deducted. Nice efficiency there. Shame they are not quite as quick to credit incoming transfers!

Prestia will be using the account balances as of 29 Sept 2023 to decide who will lose the gold status. So if anyone with gold status now can come up with anything worthwhile to invest 3 million yen with them, please inform. Otherwise, I may have to move my account elsewhere, it seems.

I got a letter in the post from Prestia offering 5.3% interest rates on 6 month USD time deposits. Less after 20.something% tax is deducted. That might be one way to make the 3 million in their wealth products. Trouble is I don't want to swap any yen into USD at 135.

I wouldn’t use Prestia to do the forex conservation, the rates are indeed horrible.

Deep Blue wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 1:38 am I wouldn’t use Prestia to do the forex conservation, the rates are indeed horrible.

I might have missed something but I think Prestia is typical for the yen-dollar exchange mark-up. The current spot rate is 136 yen to the dollar and Prestia is offering the transaction at 136.62. That is not a bad mark-up for the retail trader.

That is surprisingly much better than expected. But I thought they charged a flat rate charge too? Their website seems to suggest 1 yen per dollar for all sells and then buys are charged at between 0.3 yen and 1.0 yen per dollar depending on your account type.