Wise - Terms of Service Change

[Kanto]

From 1 May 2021, your Customer Agreement with us will change.

This is because of changes to the regulations issued by our regulator in Japan, the Japan Financial Services Agency. You can read more about these changes on their website.

This means that:

You won’t be able to hold more than 1 million JPY, or the equivalent, in your Wise account for more than 30 days in a row.

This allowance is based on the total amount you have in your account, and includes the money you hold in your balances and in your jars.

We’ll ask you to add an external JPY bank account. If your balance goes over 1 million yen or equivalent, we’ll automatically send the extra money there.

If you’re holding money in a different currency and you go over the 1 million JPY allowance, we’ll convert the extra amount and send it to the external account you added. You can check the fee we will charge you for it here.

If you don’t have an external account added, you'll have 30 days to withdraw the extra mount. After that, you won’t be able to receive or add money to your Wise account until your account goes below 1 million JPY again.

If you accept our new Terms of Use, you don’t need to do anything. Simply keep using Wise as usual. If you don’t want to accept these new terms, you can close your account.

[Jake]

I saw that this morning, can't say I'm surprised. I haven't checked the Japan FSA site yet, but I'm sure they are not only concerned about the amount held for a 30 day period, but will be looking at the number and size of transfers.
Although I am curious, if the money held with Wise doesn't earn interest, why are the J feds worried? It's the same as storing cash under the bed like J politicians do? (allegedly)

[Andy.]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone sent money using Wise recently? To send money to Japan, you have to top up your GBP balance first, so I did that by sending a transfer from my UK bank last night. The money was immediately returned to me, and I got an email saying it had been refunded because 'there wasn't a transfer set up'. However, I can't set up a transfer because when you click the transfer button on the Wise site, the message says "Sorry, Japan residents must first add enough money to their GBP balance to continue with a GBP transfer."

I sent them an email asking about it, but they replied with a stock response of 'I see that we received your money, but there was not a transfer set up', so the guy clearly hadn't read my message properly. Just wondering if anyone here had successfully transferred money since the terms of service/name change and, if so, how did you do it?

Cheers,
Andy

[goodandbadjapan]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone sent money using Wise recently? To send money to Japan, you have to top up your GBP balance first, so I did that by sending a transfer from my UK bank last night. The money was immediately returned to me, and I got an email saying it had been refunded because 'there wasn't a transfer set up'. However, I can't set up a transfer because when you click the transfer button on the Wise site, the message says "Sorry, Japan residents must first add enough money to their GBP balance to continue with a GBP transfer."

I sent them an email asking about it, but they replied with a stock response of 'I see that we received your money, but there was not a transfer set up', so the guy clearly hadn't read my message properly. Just wondering if anyone here had successfully transferred money since the terms of service/name change and, if so, how did you do it?

Cheers,
Andy

I did it last week. Yes - had to top up the GBP balance by sending from Uk bank. It was pretty instantaneous. Then transferred to JP bank and again arrived in minutes. Have you transferred money before from that UK account? -If so the transfer wise payee details should be in there and it should be simple. If not there may be steps I am unaware of for setting up a 'new' transfer account.

[Andy.]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I made some transfers last year, so basically nothing changed. Followed the process of topping up the GBP balance and then making the transfer. However, this time, it didn''t work. I'll keep emailing them, and if I hear back, I'll post here.

[Andy.]

Just in case anyone else needs to know, I worked it out:

Basically, all previous transfers I'd made before April were to Wise's company account, and I typed in a unique reference number to show who the money should go to. However, when you make a balance now (say, for example, in GBP), Wise provide you with your own account number and sort code, so you are sending the money to yourself rather than 'Wise'. You just need to click on GBP balance in the left column of the home page, and then 'Your GBP account details' from the drop-down at the top. It shows you the account holder's name (you), the account number and sort code. Once I set up the transfer from my UK bank account, it went through within a few seconds.

Anyway, apologies for filling up people's feed if you already knew this, but maybe it can help out someone who hasn't used Wise for a while and gets as confused as me.

Cheers,
Andy