Sending money to Japan with Transferwise

[goodandbadjapan]

I've used Transferwise to send money from Japan painlessly many times, so I thought I'd do an experiment and try sending a little to myself in Japan. Surprise, surprise it was rejected because the name or something doesn't match that on my account. I took great effort to make sure it did match exactly what was on my account book but maybe there is some bizarre half-width / full width thing going on or my middle name is part of my first name and there must be no gap or something. Anyway, just wondered if anyone has made a successful transfer to Japan using Transferwise? I'll just need to go to the bank and ask them what exactly I must put on the form but it is a constant source of frustration that banks here must make everything so needlessly complicated!

[robster]

I have used Transferwise several times to send money to myself in Japan, without any problem.

[goodandbadjapan]

Good to know. I'll give it another go - I don't actually have any need to do it but just wanted to try it! I'm sure it was just a name thing I must have messed up.

[Galway Dave]

Does it cost money to receive money through TransferWise? Do all banks on general charge to receive money from abroad? My local bank charges me 4,000yen to receive the 10,000yen from a friend in Australia ><

[goodandbadjapan]

What OkLah said. It is in effect two local transfers - the payer make s a local transfer to Transferwise in that country and Transferwise make a local payment in the payee's country at that day's exchange rate. I'm pretty sure there is no charge to receive the money.

[Galway Dave]

So after all the recommendations on here for transferwise I signed up and looked to receive money from abroad (family members coming over for the rugby world cup and they wanted to send money ahead) but I kept getting an error so I emailed them and I have been told it is not possible to receive money in Japan from abroad which seems to contradict everything said on this forum. So emailed again to confirm and they said it is possible to send money abroad from Japan but not the other way around. Confused??? Is there a different transferwise website???

[ricardo]

I always thought they were s**t (check MY posts).

But if your friends are coming to Japan for the rugby, they don’t need to use them.

Change a bit of cash at the airport then just use your credit card. Like you do everywhere else.

[RetireJapan]

So after all the recommendations on here for transferwise I signed up and looked to receive money from abroad (family members coming over for the rugby world cup and they wanted to send money ahead) but I kept getting an error so I emailed them and I have been told it is not possible to receive money in Japan from abroad which seems to contradict everything said on this forum. So emailed again to confirm and they said it is possible to send money abroad from Japan but not the other way around. Confused??? Is there a different transferwise website???

You can't use your TransferWise account to receive money from abroad. If your family want to send you money they would need to use TransferWise (or something similar) to send it to your bank account here.

[Galway Dave]

Ah okay my understanding was that they would send from their transferwise account to my transferwise account in Japan. I see how it works now. Thanks for clearing that up.

When I contacted them, they got back to me within 24 hours like they said they would and my follow up email was replied to within a few hours, so no problems so far.

Concerning my brother and his wife, they took out a loan to cover the cost of the trip (probably against the whole philosophy of this website) and didn't want to carry thousands of euro on them to Japan, so I suggested they transfer the money into a bank account I don't use anymore that has a credit card attached to it, so they could use that while they are here and not worry about charges and conversion rates. Think it is a good idea and I'm ready for the call from my bank questioning where the money is coming from

[goodandbadjapan]

So after all the recommendations on here for transferwise I signed up and looked to receive money from abroad (family members coming over for the rugby world cup and they wanted to send money ahead) but I kept getting an error so I emailed them and I have been told it is not possible to receive money in Japan from abroad which seems to contradict everything said on this forum. So emailed again to confirm and they said it is possible to send money abroad from Japan but not the other way around. Confused??? Is there a different transferwise website???

You can't use your TransferWise account to receive money from abroad. If your family want to send you money they would need to use TransferWise (or something similar) to send it to your bank account here.

Yes, they use Transferwise and specify your bank account in Japan. I've done it twice with no problems sending money from my own account in the UK to my account here. The only hiccup I had before those two occasions was a mistake in the name of my bank account in Japan. But you can definitely send money from UK (and I assume Ireland) to Japan using Transferwise.