{"id":2960,"date":"2009-09-15T12:26:37","date_gmt":"2009-09-15T19:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/?p=2960"},"modified":"2009-09-15T16:38:47","modified_gmt":"2009-09-15T23:38:47","slug":"shinjuku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/shinjuku\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening a bank account in Japan as a foreigner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shinjuku<\/a><\/p>\n

The other morning I got on the train for a couple of stops to Shinjuku in order to open a bank account. Why go so far you ask when there are a dozen banks closer to my apartment? Because I’m a foreigner and Japanese banks, for the most part, won’t let you open an account until you have lived in Japan for six months. I’ve actually lived in Japan for two years now but that doesn’t count either since I’ve only been here a few weeks on this occasion. It’s really bizarre that I can get a working visa but not a bank account. I’m not applying for a loan, credit card, or other service where I could possibly split the country with their money either. I just want a place where my employer can make a direct deposit. <\/p>\n

So I took the journey to Shinjuku to open an account with Shinsei Bank \u65b0\u751f\u9280\u884c, and I’m glad I did. This bank is the best bank I have ever dealt with. I walked in to a waiting room that looked like I had entered a luxurious spa. This is very different from every bank I’ve ever entered in Japan. Most look like a very clean DMV with everyone working around one giant desk in the middle. Not so here. Employees had their own fancy offices. The design and decor of the place was unlike anything I’ve experienced. One wall was a giant screen TV. Not only that but my A’s were playing the Mariners (and winning for once) on this flat screen. <\/p>\n

The lady helping me apologized, saying it could take 40 minutes to set up my account. No problem with this kind of atmosphere I thought. I have done currency exchanges<\/a> that took longer than 40 minutes at Japanese banks and post offices. Setting up an account while watching baseball in the lap of luxury could take much longer for all I cared. All she needed was a copy of my Foreigner Registration Card (\u5916\u56fd\u4eba\u767b\u9332\u8a3c\u660e\u66f8). She did the rest and had it all done in 15 minutes. I had my choice of over 30 different colors for my ATM card. She smiled at me smartly when I chose bamboo.<\/p>\n

Seriously, if you ever need to set up a bank account in Japan look no further than Shinsei Bank. The service is outstanding, you can get an account as soon as you have your \u5916\u56fd\u4eba\u767b\u9332\u8a3c\u660e\u66f8, and you can use pretty much any ATM in the country for free (including the post office and 7-11). Supposedly their employees speak English too, but I started in Japanese and we therefore did the whole set up in Japanese so I can’t tell you if they really can speak English or not. The documents she gave me at the end were all in English though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other morning I got on the train for a couple of stops to Shinjuku in order to open a bank account. Why go so far you ask when there are a dozen banks closer to my apartment? Because I’m a foreigner and Japanese banks, for the most part, won’t let you open an account […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[214],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2960"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3064,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2960\/revisions\/3064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}