Money transfer to Japan

[Alma]

As title says, I wonder what are possibilites to get some money transfered from abroad... I've noticed there is no western union here, but maybe there is something I do not know about... like "eastern union"

no, really? I do have account with JPost, but can money be transfered to it? Or do I need an account in other bank, and is it possible? If it is, which bank?

thank you in advance

[undrentide]

If you have an account at JPost (ゆうちょ銀行）and if the country the money is to be transferred from is one of those marked with □ on the list (see the following webpage), it is possible to have money transferred from the post office to your account. (In case of UK, Spain, Denmark, and Romania it is from a bank, not post office.)
http://www.jp-bank.japanpost.jp/koji..._sk_index.html
There's some explanations at the bottom of the page, but unfortunately everything is in Japanese. I could not find the same information in English....

It seems that from some countries, you can also receive the money in the form of International Postal Giro, which you can exchange with money at J Post.

[Alma]

thank you very much! I was actually planing to go to ask in person, but even when I am sending mail, they wonder what country is "Bosnia" and where is it and double check everything... so I prefer to avoid that...

and about list... my country is not even listed

but luckily enough, neighboring countries are, and that might be good enough
thanks again!

[ArmandV]

This brings to mind something I've wondered about: are there Japanese banks with branches in the U.S. or U.S. banks with branches in Japan? And, if so, are your accounts accessible from the other country?

It would seem to me something that would make money transfers unnecessary.

[Alma]

^ that is interesting point, and it should be possible... however, I don't have a clue

[undrentide]

One example I can think of immediately is CitiBank.
They do have branches in Japan, so if you have an account, you should be withdraw your money from the bank or ATM here in Japan.

Many Japanese banks have their branches abroad, but not sure if they handle personal accounts, as I understood that their main function is to deal with other banks abroad.

Basically, it is possible to transfer money from any bank abroad to any bank in Japan, as far as one has an account to receive the money.
[Edit: these banks abroad should be handling foreign exchange business.]
The problem is, charges for international money transfer is very expensive.

Last year my friend sent me JPY10,000 from Hungary to my account in a Japanese bank in Tokyo.
The charge was taken from the amount by the Hungarian bank (JPY750), and when I received the amount, my bank also charged me JPY2,500 (this is standard as the charge to receive money from abroad to an account in Japanese bank), so the total amount I actually received was JPY6,750. In this case it was JPY3,250 but it could be more, depending on the banks.

Another problem is that not all the banks have correspondent agreement with every bank in the world. That means, if you use bank A in your country to transfer the money to bank B in another country, and if the banks A and B are not correspondent banks, the transfer needs to go through yet another bank C who has correspondent agreement with both A and B. If there's no such bank, then the money goes through yet another bank D.
Each bank charges either the sender or receiver of the money, and total cost could be way too much especially when the amount of money one intends to transfer is not so big.

I've read somewhere that using internet banking system could charge much less, but I have no experience there...

[bruno]

Debit Card may be a solution !?

[Alma]

Originally Posted by bruno

Debit Card may be a solution !?

could be, but I still haven't found foreigner-friendly bank by that I don't mean english-speanking bank, of course, but some that will not make problems like demanding to have seal for signature etc...