I finally sent money back to America last month after building up savings in Japan for 9 months. I built up the courage and figured out the process one afternoon. Corinne
and I combined our money and sent it home together, splitting the ¥2,500 ($27) fee.
We sent the transfer to her ING Direct account since it would be easier for her to transfer my portion to my account. Sending money internationally from the post office in Japan takes anywhere from 10 to 21 days.
Unfortunately, I received a letter from the bank around the 14th day. It stated that the funds had not been transferred because the bank we were sending the money to – ING Direct – couldn’t accept international wire transfers.
Thankfully, my home bank does so I went back to the post office the next day and had it re-sent for another ¥1,000 ($11) . The funds eventually arrived in my bank account about a week later.
The situation was a huge pain, but we were lucky. We didn’t need that money to arrive home for a mortgage, credit card bill, or student loan due that week. A lot of international wire transfers do have a sense of urgency to them, though. The money needs to get where it’s going and usually fast. Maybe the transfer needs to fund a vacation, an airplane ticket, a hotel, or an emergency.
Before you go abroad, check with your bank to see if they accept international wire transfers.
Do yourself a favor and take 5 minutes to search your bank’s site for the information. If you can’t find it, call them and ask. If I would’ve done this before I left last July, I would’ve saved having to leave school to go to the bank, having to pay another ¥1,000 to re-send the funds, and a week of headaches.
Below I’ve inserted a cheat sheet for you to check if your bank accepts international wire transfers as well as a link to the page explaining the costs, limitations, and other details of their international wire transfer rules.
Does Your Bank Accept International Wire Transfers?
*Reminder, each bank charges a fee for receiving wires, on top of the fee of sending it*
Chase – Yes, but must sign up
Bank of America – Yes ($15)
Wells Fargo – Yes
Citi – Yes
ING Direct – No
Ally – No (p.4)
FNBO – No
HSBC – Yes ($12)
If your bank isn’t included in the list above, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it.
Photo: Neubie
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FYI Bank of America charges 12 dollars on top of whatever you pay in the other country, but from Brazil to my Bank of America account, it only took about a day and a half. Not sure if the credit is due to the Brazilian bank in question (Banco Real) or Bank of America, or both.
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Austin Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 7:26 am
It seems like $12 is around the average. That’s a really quick transfer, though so that’s good for you.
Have you had any problems with BOA while in Brazil?
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I had someone transfer money to my HSBC business checking from England (I’m in the US). They said it cost quiet a bit – but I did not bother to check the fee as they were responsible for it :)
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Austin Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 7:28 am
According to HSBC’s email, it costs $15 to receive a wire. That’s not too bad.
How’s HSBC working for you?
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Ben Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
I’ve had both online and brick-and-mortar accounts with them for a while. Besides the online interests rates tanking (from a high of almost 4 to 1.1 now), I can’t complain about the bank.
One reason I’m sticking with HSBC vs Ally, etc is because of the actual brick-and-mortar presence.
I can deposit a check/cash into my regular savings and within minutes (for cash) or hours (for checks) go online and make a transfer to my online account. No need to mail anything. (Most of the work I do is freelancing, so no direct deposits).
Same deal for withdrawals: go online, transfer money from my online savings into my regular saving and withdraw cash from the bank within minutes.
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I’ve actually had only good services from BofA while in Brazil. I had 2 problems with my account, and both were handled really well. The first problem: Someone got a hold of my account number and spent hundreds of dollars on iTunes and Xbox (kind of a waste of all the hard work hacking, if you ask me). Since I don’t use my account that much, it might have been weeks before I noticed. But Bank of America sent me an alert email about unusual activity, and because I had flagged my account that I was out of the country, they offered me a phone number that I could call collect from an international phone! I had to sign a paper confirming that it wasn’t my purchase. They sent me the paper as a PDF and I just mailed it back from Brazil. They refunded the purchases in less than 24 hours. So efficient.
The other problem was that a store here accidentally charged my BofA credit card 3 times for the same (expensive) purchase. The bank automatically canceled the second 2 and sent me an email to confirm the status of all 3. All I had to do was log into a secure website to confirm.
So overall, I’ve been really happy with BofA, especially while living abroad!
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Austin Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
I love good bank stories. It makes me feel like the world is moving in the right direction ;)
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As a fellow Foreigner in Japan here is how I have been sending money back home for the past year:
I use Japan Post to wire money with an International Payment Application, upfront cost is 2500Yen and another deducted cost of about 1000Yen somewhere in the process taken from my wired amount. For me this takes about 5-7 days to post to my Chase account, who takes a $15 processing fee, then can be freely dispersed where needed.
Although this sounds like a lot, on average you are buying $1 for 95Yen. With 5 cents for every dollar 100,000Yen becomes $1050! So the whole process pays for itself.
As for setting up with Chase, I had to send them an Email to receive my home branch name and addressee and bank code (CHASUS33). As far as I know I didn’t have to sign up, but that Email may have signed me up automatically.
Good luck and happy teaching!
Joshua
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Austin Reply:
June 26th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
I used the JP as well and it went smoothly once everything was figured out. I’m a little confused by this though:
“Although this sounds like a lot, on average you are buying $1 for 95Yen. With 5 cents for every dollar 100,000Yen becomes $1050! So the whole process pays for itself.”
Maybe I’m just dense, but I’m a little confused. Can you explain it again?
Are you a JET, Joshua? If so, where are you?
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Joshua Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Your not dense that sentence is a little confusing.
So I’ll break it down-
Average Cost to wire transfer = $50
June 18th Currency Trading was Y91.87 = $1
Two months savings of 150,000Y to send by wire transfer.
150,000/91.87 = 1632.75 – 50 = 1582.75
When trading Yen for dollars I made $132.75 subtracting the $50 processing fees and its still $82.75 profit I can stash away or throw at student loan debt.
Yes, I am an English in Japan living in Mie Prefecture in Yokkaichi just south of Nagoya.
I hope everyone can understand this a little better.
Joshua
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If you use GoLloyds bank, then you can do a wire transfer to any bank in the US no problem. GoLloyds wires it to their US compatriot who then does a normal domestic wire transfer. GoLloyds sets you up a Japan account, so you just send a normal furikomi to your GoLloyds account and it sends it back home for you. Super easy and convenient.
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Austin Reply:
July 1st, 2010 at 6:42 pm
How do you get started with GoLloyds?
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i want to know if my husband can send a international money transfer to my debit card
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Austin @ Foreigner's Finances Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 9:29 am
If that debit card is attached to a checking account I’m sure you can.
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I saw bankwire still had my money it said 1 pending payout why they holding my money and not sending it to my bank account.
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