RetireJapan

Just a public service announcement that Shinsei Bank will be ending free ATM withdrawls for all customers this October.

http://sp.shinseibank.com/info/news1804 ... 0180502_03

Standard members will pay 108 yen per transaction. Gold members will continue to have free transactions. Requirements for reaching Gold status are here.

http://sp.shinseibank.com/powerflex/rel ... stage.html

Basically you need to have a balance of 2,000,000 or have other investments.

Wow that sucks. Isn't it one of their main sales pitches?

At least I don't have account there and my banks still have (limited) free withdrawals... for now.

Yeah, this really sucks. I liked Shinsei a lot, and the free withdrawals was a big part of that. Have to figure out the best way to get to Gold (or Platinum)...

Other net banks offer limited free withdrawls with much lower limits than Shinsei will have. Check out Rakuten Bank, Sony Bank, Japan Net Bank or SBI bank. Don't think any of them offer service in English though.

gerdemb wrote: ↑Sat May 05, 2018 3:05 pm Just a public service announcement that Shinsei Bank will be ending free ATM withdrawls for all customers this October.

Nooooooo.....

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Sun May 06, 2018 12:24 amHave to figure out the best way to get to Gold

You can do it with 1M yen if you put it in their two week term deposit account (which you can open on the website with a simple transfer). I used to keep my emergency fund there but then stopped that when I actually needed the funds and waiting for the notice period to lapse gave me a lot of unneeded anxiety.

gerdemb wrote: ↑Sun May 06, 2018 1:53 amSBI bank

Been meaning to check them out for a while, could be a good push.

For what it's worth, here are some other features that I've noticed Shinsei doesn't support (that other more modern banks I've used do)

1. "Name back" feature when making a transfer. This means the receiving account holder name gets populated automatically. Can be very convenient and prevents having to get the exact half-width katakana right.
2. Pay Easy.
3. Direct charge for Line Pay (which I like because of the 2% cashback, although the 2% is also due to end this month and be replaced with an as-yet unannounced alternative).
4. "Quick" sign up for utility bill furikae that means you don't have to fill in the transfer form each time you set one up.

Also 300,000 yen in foreign currency account will get you Gold. Probably the easiest solution, albeit at the cost of FX risk.

I've been a platinum member with them for a while, but in my case it means having to hold a significant amount of money in Euro, doing nothing with it. Not sure if it's worth it to be honest.

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Sun May 06, 2018 12:39 pm Also 300,000 yen in foreign currency account will get you Gold. Probably the easiest solution, albeit at the cost of FX risk.

Instead of one, you could spread to several foreign currencies and attenuate that. I think the would still count as ¥300k equiv.

Looking at the SBI account since it links nicely with the Stock account.

Looks like 300k deposits gets you Rank 2, which is 5 ATM withdrawals anywhere + 3 external furikomis. Seems good enough to me! If you pay in your salary there plus link to the stock account (and use it), that removes the 300k requirement too. And if you get one more requirement from that, like spending 10k on their debit or credit card, that gets you Rank 3, which is 7 ATMS and Furikomis. You can also get rank 3 by maintaining 3M yen deposits, but unless the ranks change in the future Rank 2 is more than enough for me.

Even the base rank 1 comes with 2 ATM withdrawals and 1 Furikomi.

https://www.netbk.co.jp/wpl/NBGate/i900 ... program_04