Remittance fees question

[ghodlin]

Hi Forum

Sorry that this is a question that has been asked before. I've been on Reddit and RetireJapan for a while looking for info. but can't find exactly what I need.

I'm starting a job with a company in Vietnam. They will pay my salary by making a bank transfer from Vietnam to my account in Japan. They will convert into YEN their side so I should avoid conversion fees. I'm trying to find out how much I can expect to pay in bank fees my side. I have accounts with UFJ, Rakuten, SMBC. As well as fees, I'm wondering if there's anything I need to do in advance to set this up.

If anyone has experience of international YEN remittances into a Japanese bank account, please share.

Refs:
https://www.rakuten-bank.co.jp/geo/incoming/
https://www.bk.mufg.jp/tesuuryou/gaitam ... 1593701744

(But I'm having difficult understanding the infor in these sites, or seeing how they apply to my situation).

Thanks!

[mighty58]

Both those links you provided clearly stipulate the fees, so is this question simply a language matter? If so, it's the 受取手数料 in the first link and 被仕向送金手数料 in the second. Generally speaking, there is nothing you need to "set up" to receive a transfer, just make sure the remitter has the requisite bank and account info.

[ghodlin]

Thanks @mighty58

In the UFJ link, I'm confused by this:
被仕向送金手数料（*1）（*2）（*3）（*4） 1,500円
円為替取扱手数料（*5）

円貨建てで受け取る場合には、上記手数料に加え、円為替取扱手数料がかかります。
送金金額の1/20％（最低2,500円）

So does this mean, the minimum fee will be 4,000 yen? Is 1/20% 0.2% of the remitted amount?

In the Rakuten Link, I'm wondering about the note that says:

中継銀行等で別途手数料が発生する場合があります。

I'm not sure why there would be an intermediary if my company sends in YEN.

[adamu]

中継銀行等で別途手数料が発生する場合があります。

I'm not sure why there would be an intermediary if my company sends in YEN.

Sorry I don't know the answer to your questions. But when I've looked into this in the past, there were no poviders that would disclose the mysterious "intermediary bank" fees except Wise, which doesn't have any. Even Shinsei GoRemit says there are unspecified intermediary fees.

The international transfer market seems completely opaque and unable to be transparent. I guess it's a seller's market because barriers to setting up a better service are so huge.

As far as I know, there is no way to be able to know in advance how much money will arrive, even when sending it in the local currency, unless using Wise. But Wise doesn't support sending from Vietnam.

I think your best method of finding out is to get them to send transfers to each of your accounts, and see how much arrives. You might even be better withdrawing cash via 7 Bank if you can do that with Vietnamese banks.

[ghodlin]

Thanks @adamu.

Frustrating if it's really this opaque. Agree, probably best to try both.

[imaginatorium]

Thanks @adamu.

Frustrating if it's really this opaque. Agree, probably best to try both.

It's meant to be opaque. There was a leaked internal memo from somewhere in Banco Santander suggesting a need to look urgently at the threat from (Transfer)Wise (TfW), because 1/3 of the bank's annual profits basically came from ripoff fees on international transfers.

[robster]

Whenever I have transferred from overseas to a bank account in Japan, there has been a charge of 4,000yen deducted as the bank handling fee. Seems to be fairly standard.
One more thing which seems to have begun recently, they might require you to present your MyNumber so they can register it to your bank account. This seems to be a recently introduced regulation to prevent tax evasion and money laundering.
I recently transferred a relatively modest amount (500,000yen) from overseas to my daughter's account in Jonan Shinkin, and they called me up asking the reason for the transfer, the identity of the sender, and mentioned that the transfer cannot be completed until they have my verified my daughter's MyNumber. This did not happen when I made the same transfer last year.

[imaginatorium]

We have a local bank account (Ashigin / 足利銀行), which always charged a hefty fee on incoming international transfers, but I remember more like 3000 or 3500. Anyway, now I use Shinsei bank, in which I have some savings, but they make a charge of 2000 yen, which they then refund a week or so later. As far as possible I use (Transfer)Wise, which generally gives a vastly better rate. (We do have customers all over the world, and one of the irritations of TfW is how hard it is to find out definitely whether a customer in country X can use them to send payment.)

Everyone now has to ask the "Reason" for the transfer, which is typically "transfer of own savings" or some similar meaningless mumbo jumbo.

Shinsei has a fairly clunky web interface, and Those Who Know say that SBI is better. In the modern world lots of things make no sense: they cannot apparently tell me in the online balance who the payment came from (I can usually guess), but they send a paper confirmation a few days later, accompanied by a little blue slip asking me to register my MyNumber. I really, honestly, intend to do this at the first opportunity.

[ghodlin]

Thanks to all who replied. Lots of useful input I've taken on board.