Credit Card / Online Banking

[tsunatuna]

Hello,

I've been in Japan for over a year now and I think it's time for a credit card. Actually there were quite a few times where a credit card would have helped a lot, a JAPANESE credit card, that is.
I often use Amazon Japan or Yahoo Auctions Japan, so I'd prefer a credit card that will be accepted there.

Right now I only have a bank account at a local bank. Actually my Japanese coworkers told me they're not even sure if it can be called a bank.
Anyway, I think it might be better to get a bank account with one of the bigger banks, but only Mizuho has a branch here in my small city.
One other option that my Japanese coworkers recommended to me is that I get a bank account with the post office and then a credit card from a big department store or even a JR credit card and connect it to that bank account.

Furthermore it should be free / no monthly fees.

Any recommendations?

I'd also would love to have online banking, but I have no idea if it's common here in Japan at all.
I found this here: http://www.japannetbank.co.jp/
It is all in Japanese, though.
My Japanese is intermediate, but for banking issues I'd like to have a 100% understanding, of course.


Thanks a lot in advance.

[KansaiBen]

Originally Posted by tsunatuna

Hello,

I've been in Japan for over a year now and I think it's time for a credit card. Actually there were quite a few times where a credit card would have helped a lot, a JAPANESE credit card, that is.
I often use Amazon Japan or Yahoo Auctions Japan, so I'd prefer a credit card that will be accepted there.

Right now I only have a bank account at a local bank. Actually my Japanese coworkers told me they're not even sure if it can be called a bank.
Anyway, I think it might be better to get a bank account with one of the bigger banks, but only Mizuho has a branch here in my small city.
One other option that my Japanese coworkers recommended to me is that I get a bank account with the post office and then a credit card from a big department store or even a JR credit card and connect it to that bank account..

The other day i had to open an account with UFJ and they offered me a combination ATM cash card and a VISA on the same card. Add to my two other cards.

American Express is usually pretty easy to get but the yearly maintenance fee is quite steep, (about 12,000 yen a year)

[tsunatuna]

Unfortunately there are no UFJ branches here and I'd also prefer an account without any fees / low fees
Thanks for your comment, though

[Sira]

Your overseas credit card isn't accepted by Amazon Japan? I've never had any trouble with my NZ credit card on Amazon J, and have been buying stuff from them for years.

[Akuma]

Originally Posted by tsunatuna

Unfortunately there are no UFJ branches here and I'd also prefer an account without any fees / low fees
Thanks for your comment, though

that's understandable. kansaiben forgot to tell u, that there is no ufj bank anymore.
a few years ago they merged with tokyo mitsubishi bank and became mufg(mistubishi ufj financial group?). though mitsubishi still offers ufj bank accounts (difference in service i believe).
also the fees do not apply to the bank account, but to the credit card.

[tsunatuna]

There are no MUFG branches here either. Only Mizuho unfortunately.

[pgoodchild]

My recommendation is to not limit yourself to banking only where there's a branch. If you want great online banking in English and Japanese, try Shinsei or Citi. With Shinsei you can request the forms to be sent to you online... fill them in, provide the identification and send it off.

If you need banking at a "branch", use what you have, or open up another account with a "proper" bank. But if you have online and telephone banking, you wont need a branch a lot of the time... just use post when there are forms etc. Very easy!

Shinsei and Citi offers credit cards as well, but I have no direct experience with that though.

There's a little article about banking in Japan, though I'm sure you know most of it, but it has got useful links: http://___________.com/living/2009/0...king-in-japan/

[sunsoul]

Yes, Shinsei has a good online banking service in English. You should check out their website, and see what they have to offer.

[U99A]

Unfortunately, Shinsei does not have English language credit card applications. You can apply on-line or go into a bracnch and ask for an application and have a friend fill it out for you.

[tsunatuna]

Shinsei sounds good to me. I need some time to read everything in detail, but are there any monthly fees?

The only thing that's NOT good is that neither Shinsei nor Citibank are accepted by Yahoo Auctions (http://payment.yahoo.co.jp/guide/inf....html#banklist), but that's what I wanted in the first place.
Mizuho on the other hand is.

I wouldn't mind if there's a branch or not as long as online banking is available (we don't have Shinsei here) and as long as I can get money from a combini ATM without any fees.

[sevenhelmets]

I haven't found any credit card companies that will have online banking in English. Shinsei (as mentioned previously) has English banking, but no credit cards.

I signed up with ebank (www.ebank.co.jp). It's essentially a VISA debit card (http://www.ebank.co.jp/kojin/service/card/index.html), which works perfectly for me. The bank is entirely online, so not sure how secure that is, but I keep only a very small amount in the account at any one time. Topping up is as simple as going to a 7/11 ATM and depositing cash - the menu's are in Japanese and English, so it's not a big deal.

In any case, there are no monthly fees if you choose the correct card (there are 2 types, the "Gold Cards" have a 300 yen monthly fee, while the "standard" ones are free).

Anyway, the application process was entirely in Japanese, but I just used Google translate to figure out what everything was. After my application process they asked for verification of my address, so I had to go to the ward office to get them to print off an "address verification" paper (cost 300 yen) and after that I was good to go. Got the card a week later, have been very happy using it ever since.

The bonus is, as per your post about Yahoo auction - they accept ebank cards, so it seems perfect for you.

Good luck.

[tsunatuna]

Actually that's exactly the kind of bank I used in my home country (and still do). No branches, all online and you still can get money at some ATMs without paying any fees.

How do you get money ON your online account? Via bank transfer? That's at least how it works back home with the only difference that the bank transfers in my country are free and here in Japan they charge you a fee *sigh*

If you go to a 7/11 ATM - do they charge you a fee if you get money from there?
With my current bank account card I have to pay a 105yen fee.


And that might be a stupid question but in my country we have a different concept, so I'm not sure about it: is a debit card the same as a credit card - if not, what's the difference?

[sevenhelmets]

Originally Posted by tsunatuna

How do you get money ON your online account? Via bank transfer? That's at least how it works back home with the only difference that the bank transfers in my country are free and here in Japan they charge you a fee *sigh*

As I mentioned earlier, you can put money into the account via 7/11 ATM by depositing directly. There may be a fee. To be honest I've never really noticed - it usually warns about a 105 yen fee, but I get really confused, because with my Shinsei account they "pay it back". God knows why the system is so screwed that they have to charge you the fee, then pay it back to you......

Originally Posted by tsunatuna

And that might be a stupid question but in my country we have a different concept, so I'm not sure about it: is a debit card the same as a credit card - if not, what's the difference?

A debit card means that you MUST have credit in the account to be able to spend it. So for example when you first get the card it'll have 0 yen balance. You'll have to "charge" it by putting a certain amount of cash in it (you can decide how much). Say for example you put in 5,000 yen. Then you spot a book on Amazon.co.jp that you want to buy, but it's worth 10,000 yen. When you try to go through the transaction to buy it, it'll decline you for lack of funds. You'd have to deposit a further 5,000 yen into the account (maybe slightly more due to fees) before you'd be able to buy the book.

So essentially theres no such thing as a "credit limit" etc. Only a balance on your account that you may spend, depending on how much you deposited in the first place.

As you might read on these forums, most people have a HUGE difficulty applying for credit cards in Japan. There are a lot of reasons why (why should a card company issue you a card when you could skip the country and not pay the bill? why should they issue to people who barely speak their language? Japanese don't do any of these, so there is more value issuing to native Japanese. They are a business, so they will always consider these things - simple fact). Some people offer good advice on how to apply for cards (sign-up via shop affliated cards, or even gym cards - the credit checking tends to be more lenient). However, in my reasoning, with ebank they don't have anything to loose, and everything to gain, so they'll virtually give a card to anyone that applies.

Besides, credit cards in Japan opperate differently to ones that you might be familiar with overseas. Here they tend to require you to pay the entire balance owing on the card at the billing date the next month. So if you go nuts with your new credit card at Yodobashi camera and buy 300,000 yen worth of stuff, you'll have to pay it all back on the 10th of the next month. Some shops will ask you if you want to split the payments over a couple of months, but this is a shop offer, and has nothing to do with the credit card company, as far as I'm aware.

[tsunatuna]

Wow, thanks for the explanation. I think my current credit cards allow me both (to use it as normal credit card or as debit card). I've never understood how to "charge" my card? Can you do that online then?

I've read almost everything on their website now. It seems that you can get money for free at 7/11 ATMs up to 2 times a month (with the classical card) and 5 times a months (with the gold card), 3 times a month with the classical premium card.
Sounds all pretty good to me and I guess I'll get it. Thanks for the recommendation

I'm still thinking about whether to completely give up my current account (which is with something that isn't even a real bank anyway) and get an Mizuho account instead (as long as it's free, that's okay with me).
I just think it'll be a pain in the a** to notify everybody that's getting money (cell phone company, internet etc.) about my new account?!
Or do banks usually offer something like a notification that you've changed your bank?! (probably not *g*)

[zmcnulty]

Just adding another vote for ebank, been using them for the past few months. Shinsei's online banking is absolutely terrible compared to ebank's. Plus I paid for the Gold card so I get 1% back on all purchases I make with it (in fact I just got back 5000 yen). I've switched my paycheck to go into ebank instead of Shinsei, so now Shinsei has like 10,000 yen while ebank has the rest of my savings. Not sure what UFJ offers but as far as I know only ebank and Suruga offer true Visa debit cards.

The *only* advantage Shinsei has over ebank is the English thing, which really shouldn't stop you if you have intermediate Japanese ability.

[tsunatuna]

Sounds great, guess I'm filling out the application form now
Thanks for all your comments.

The ebank account works still like a normal bank account, right? Meaning I can make normal bank transfers (online) and all?

[tsunatuna]

Just a quick question for those of you who use ebank.
Did you get that chashcard thingie, too?
If so can you tell me more about it?
I know it's free, but is it useful at all if you already have the credit card?

[zmcnulty]

What do you mean by cash card? I guess you're talking about withdrawing from ATMs, in which case yeah it's useful. Still a lot of places that don't take credit cards, so you do need cash quite often.

[tsunatuna]

No, I mean that one:
http://www.ebank.co.jp/kojin/service/card/index.html

On the top you see the card we were talking about here (I assume).
When you scroll down they introduce a cash card and if I understood you can get that card in addition to the credit card (shown above) for free, but I was not sure if that's of any use for me, so I didn't apply for that one.

[zmcnulty]

They offer three cards:

1) A cash card + debit card
2) A cash card + credit card
3) A cash card

#1 will allow you to make ATM withdrawals, and also acts as a debit card. So whatever VISA purchases you make will come right out of your account balance.
#2 will allow you to make ATM withdrawals, and also acts as a credit card. So you have to pay off the balance (or not) each month.
#3 will allow you to make ATM withdrawals, and that's it. It's for customers under 16.

#1 is what I'm talking about and for me the prevailing reason to use ebank versus virtually any other Japanese bank.

[tsunatuna]

Quick question about the Visa debit card of ebank: is there a limit like how much money you can spend at once?
I'm about to buy a plane ticket online, but it's probably around 160.000yen, so I was wondering if there's a limit that might not allow me to purchase tickets online?!

[bland]

Originally Posted by tsunatuna

Quick question about the Visa debit card of ebank: is there a limit like how much money you can spend at once?

Subject to your available funds, the only limit I can recall is something like half a million yen per day for overseas transactions.

Originally Posted by tsunatuna

I'm about to buy a plane ticket online, but it's probably around 160.000yen

Shouldn't be a problem, provided you have sufficient funds.

[tsunatuna]

Originally Posted by bland

Shouldn't be a problem, provided you have sufficient funds.

Well, not yet, but that shouldn't be a problem.
Hope the fee is not too high for deposing such a large amount of money (x_X)