In many ways it is important for a working holiday maker to open a bank account at the beginning of his journey. Where else should he store his earned money.
At the beginning it can be a bit difficult to open a bank account. You need for example a phone number to open a bank account, but need a bank account to buy a mobile phone contract. Here are two possible solutions for this problem.
- You buy a prepaid cellphone which don’t need a bank account to buy it
- You can ask a friend or your workplace to borrow their number until you have your own.
When you have your number you still need to decide to which bank you go to open an account there. One advantage in Japan’s banks are that it is free to open an account at a Bank, so you can make as much as you need.
In Japan are two very common bank types. The normal ones that you know from your home country and internet banks.
In the most normal banks u will need to have stayed for a certain period of time in Japan to open an account, mostly half a year, but there are several banks, where you can open an account immediately. It can be very useful to obtain a name stamp (so called Inkan) of your own, because it is very often used as signature in Japan, but you should be able to open an account with your normal signature. To be sure just ask at the bank. You especially have enough time to open an account because it can take some time until every little thing was checked by the banker.
You can easily open a bank account at an internet bank at home at your computer. You will need a phone number here as well. When you opened a Bank account at an internet bank, you will receive a credit card with which you have access to your bank account. You can withdraw and deposit money at your account through that card, but it is not useable at each ATM. Sadly you can probably not transfer money to an account abroad.
Each bank has its pro and contra, but you need to know yourself what kind of bank account you need. I for myself am happy with both.
In fact, a lot of Japanese people have both types of accounts.
I wish a good work and holiday and a lot of good experience.
