RetireJapan

Hello,

I'm moving to Japan within the next few years and I'm trying to ensure all my finances are setup properly. I have US based income and found that I can use OFX to transfer money from my US bank to a Japanese bank, but I'm not certain which Japanese bank to go with. I've found:

1) MUFG (because the wife already has a MUFG account)
2) Shinsei bank (they appear to be foreigner friendly)
3) Mizuho bank (they appear to be foreigner friendly too)
4) SMBC bank (their app says English is available)

I'm at a complete loss when it comes to pros/cons of Japanese banks. My savings will be in high interest US based bank (2.1%), credit cards with US based banks (2% cash back on everything). So essentially I'm looking for:

1) Ability to transfer money in for the lowest cost via OFX or similar program.
2) Be able to automate Japanese bills with the account.
3) A banking app preferably in English.
4) No ATM or account fees would be nice, but at least I want to know what they are.

Is there any drawbacks or benefits with the banks I'm looking at, or is there a different one I should look into? Any help or recommendations would be appreciated.

R/
Victor

I think Shinsei would be a good start (you can open multiple accounts for different purposes). The main thing is that they are good about accepting transfers from abroad, English service, if you jump through some hoops you get free ATM use, etc.

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 20, 2019 7:33 am I think Shinsei would be a good start (you can open multiple accounts for different purposes). The main thing is that they are good about accepting transfers from abroad, English service, if you jump through some hoops you get free ATM use, etc.

Thank you, I was heavily leaning that way already just based upon what information I can find. I don't suppose you know of a way to get a house loan based upon foreign income do you? I saw HSBC did from 2009-2013 but I'm not seeing any banks that currently do.

Haven't heard anything like that unfortunately. Anyone else?

You might consider consolidating your US accounts into a single broker/bank account. I use Schwab and cannot recommend them enough. Some US outfits will close your accounts on you if they think you're outside the US.

No card points but abroad you get spot rates and all transaction/ATM fees are refunded, and they've been great at wiring money to shinsei, or receiving wires from them.

24/7/365 online or free calls.

I have experience with the Postal Bank, Resona and Prestia (SMBC) in Japan. Of those three I think Prestia is the easiest to use for someone who is not at ease in Japanese. I don't find any of them especially cheap but Prestia does wave fees for foreign exchange if you maintain an account balance of 10,000,000 yen (in case you have that much lying around) and they still have an agreement with Citibank which means using Citibank ATM's outside Japan does not require an ATM fee.

Regarding buying a home I would recommend taking it slow and first deciding if you really expect to be here a long time. Japan does not have a great housing market in terms of appreciation, the tax treatment when you buy or sell a property is not as advantagous as many other countries and I think consumers don't have as much bargaining power here as I saw when buying property in the US. I own a home in Tokyo and am happy with where I live but it hasn't been an outstanding investment.