RetireJapan

Has anyone here upgraded to Prestia Gold? Just wondering if it's worth the effort.

Yes, and Yes.
Need Minimum Average Historical Balance...

https://www.smbctb.co.jp/en/gold/

Tkydon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 14, 2022 4:48 am Yes, and Yes.
Need Minimum Average Historical Balance...

https://www.smbctb.co.jp/en/gold/

Another, similiar option, is step-up with Shinsei. Monex trust holdings count towards your holdings.

I have Prestia Gold, for me the only worthwhile thing is no charge on domestic bank transfers. Saves a little end month. Not really found any other worthwhile benefits, but it is free to upgrade so no harm.

I have Euros (as well as some USD and AUD) in my Prestia multimoney account.

I found the Prestia Gold card great when I travelled to Europe recently. When I used it as debit card (and to withdraw cash from ATM), the Euros came directly from my Euro deposits, no hassles with currency changes.

Free ATM withdrawals, especially from 7-Bank, 7-11, SMBC ATMs, and probably more now

Free Fund Transfers, All Domestic And International

Global Pass Card - Overseas Support for ATM Card, withdrawing money directly from Foreign Currency Multi-Money Account, of exchanged on the fly, for a small commission.

Monthly Automatic Purchase of Foreign Currency at Spot Mid-Rate - zero commission

Conversion between Foreign Currencies (not JPY) at Spot Mid-Rate - zero commission (Over the Phone)

They do have Mutual Funds, but only on the Japanese Language Site - probably better to stick with a Broker...


Any other benefits that I haven't discovered / don't use?

I had Prestia Gold, but hadn’t been using it much in recent years, and just closed my account recently.

I have been putting my excess cash into investments with a net shoken, and use a net bank as my primary bank account (I have a loan with them and other stuff, so I get plenty of free monthly transfers and find their offering the best overall), and a Japanese mega bank (one of the two respectable ones) as well.

I don’t send money between on/offshore on an annual basis. I did use them specifically for that in the past, but haven’t had the need for close to a decade. I used to do more overseas transfers and I recall it’s former Citibank incarnation was the best for that, when sending large sums.

So as I have been using it to withdraw cash only in recent years, Prestia finally sent me a letter telling me they would start to charge me a monthly fee if I don’t increase my monthly balance again. I promptly acted to close my account with them

I have it and don't find much use for it. You can get free ATM withdrawals with all the other net banks with lower requirements (and its actually free and not the weird cha-cha that Prestia does with charging you for it first then reimbursing you after). The overseas withdrawals and having money in USD is nice but how often will you need that. In 10 years with them, I've only ever used it twice.

Prestia also has the unfortunate honor of being named SMBTC but you don't actually get the integrations with SMBC that go with it (other than free transfers among SMBC accounts). This means Rakuten/SBI/Monex doesn't have auto sweep for it (that I could see) and it definitely doesn't work for auto-debit for my electricty/gas/internet unlike the mega banks.

Just to illustrate my point, if you have the 10M in Prestia for Gold, you could theoretically put:
3M into Rakuten Bank (Super VIP rank, the highest they have. Practically free withdrawals and transfers plus 3x points)
3M into SBI (Rank III which is not the highest but you need 5M in foreign currency to get Rank IV)

and still have 4M you can put into Shinsei where you can get Gold rank for 5M in savings + 1M in Monex.

I was doing some revision about overseas transfers, at this site by a Mr. Yamada: http://kaigaisokin.seesaa.net/
The site is extremely ugly, but the information there about how to cheaply transfer funds internationally is excellent, in my last experience.

Anyway, SMBC Prestia continues to be mentioned there as part of the best solution to transfer large sums overseas and vice versa, thanks to the flat rate fees.

In hindsight, it seems I could have increased my yen deposit amount to maintain it without fees, but be short of Gold status (which is not of concern to me). But if I want to do such overseas transfers again in future I will possibly reopen an account for that purpose.

According to r/japanfinance wiki, the spread on vanilla overseas FX transfers with Presita is really uncompetitive. It's +-1 yen around TTM for USD$ transfers, so trounced by Sony Gold & Platinum and Shinsei Platinum. Not looked into Prestia in much detail though, so maybe I've missed something...