Banking in Japan

In the US, the two of us together had ONE joint bank account. Here, I have one account and Peter now has FOUR! Why? Well, our landlord banks with JA Bank and the school that Juhee is starting in April banks with Hiroshima Bank. Because there is a fee for transferring money from one bank account to another, we would have to pay a fee every month for two of our major expenses because we're with Hiroshima Shinkin Bank. The fees aren't substantial (about $6) but they add up! So Peter withdraws money from our main bank account and then makes deposits at the other two. @@

And then, thanks to Wells Fargo's International Wire Transfer system not working very well (silver lining :)), Peter did some more research and found out that another bank, Shinsei Bank, doesn't charge to receive money wire transfers which saves us even more on fees (about $30 per transfer). Shinsei Bank also allows one free intra-Japan bank transfer per month so it saves Peter from having to withdraw money and physically take it to the other two banks if he alternates every other month. Save time and money - yay!

We also found out that we get a better exchange rate and pay a much lower fee if we withdraw money directly from an ATM instead of doing a wire transfer using our Wells Fargo ATM card at the post office. Like in the UK, post offices here also have a banking system. We can't withdraw money from our Wells Fargo account at any of the other ATMs, only the ones at post offices.

We're so happy we found out about these better, quicker, money-saving ways of transferring money to Japan early on during our time here. We'll be saving hundreds, if not thousands (not exaggerating) of USD every year - yay! :)