Nippon finance - English Information about Japanese Consumer Finance

 Welcome, and I hope this is useful to someone.

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to provide information in English to those interested about financial institutions, products, etc. in Japan.   

There are many products available, including FX trading, basic bank accounts, brokerage  accounts, credit cards, home  loans, investment loans, prepaid cards, cashing loans, shopping  loans, electronic money, and more.  Navigating this maze can be a little bit overwhelming even in if you are fluent in Japanese, but I presume it to be more difficult if you don't know the language, as very few of the products or services are marketed towards foreignors or have any official information available in English at all.  

Target Audience

My target audience is expats and students who are expected to be in Japan 1-2 years.  This is enough time to need at least a bank account, but not long enough to be expected to learn the language.  This information may also be interesting to those who don't live or plan to live in Japan, but want to understand the world of consumer finance in Japan.  

Disclaimer

While most  of this information will come  directly from personal experience or summarized translations from  the financial institutions themselves, I make no guarentee that the information is 100% correct and up to date.  Things change, and I won't have time to keep every page up to date all the time.  There will be fine print that I don't discuss, and legal issues I will gloss over.  Bear this in mind, and don't  rely completely on this blog to base major financial decisions.  

About Learning Japanese

One major misconception that I often encounter amonst western English speakers is that it's "okay" not to learn Japanese.  You can survive in Japan without learning Japanese, but your situation will be akin to a Chinese person who has moved to the United States or some other western country without learning English.  That is, you will be functionally illiterate.  You can confine yourself to  Chinatown (or Roppongi...), hang out only with friends who speak your language, and read only news sources in your language, buy your world will be small and sheltered.  You will have to rely on others to help you, and won't truely be an  adult capable of  making your own decisions.  

If you are only in Japan for a year or two, then this is simply unavoidable.  Nobody can expect you to learn the language of every country you visit.  If you have been  in the country for more than five years and still  don't speak the language, then you are keeping yourself at a severe disadvantage.  You may still find much of what is written here helpful, but bear in mind that in order to find the "fine print", you will likely need to go to the original source.  

Japanese is not an official or unofficial second language in Japan, and most companies have zero interest in securing the business of foreignors who don't speak the language.  You'll often hear Americans say to foreignors with poor English  living in the US "Learn  the language!"   The situation is less overt  in Japan,  but the fact is that less than  2% of the population is foreignors, and the majority of those are people from  other Asian countries who learned the language before they came to Japan.  That means that the number of people in Japan (Excluding tourists) who don't know Japanese is well under 0.6% of the population.  Bear in mind that most financial products are not offered to tourists, and you'll begin to understand why there is no financial motivation for most companies to provide English service.  Those that do often charge more for this "premium service", so knowing Japanese will allow you to shop around and save money.  

About Residency Status

Many of the credit products discussed here are only offered to those with long term residency or citizenship, though conditions vary by company.  (A basic understanding of Japanese is a de facto condition of citizenship, and most people on  a long term visa also know the language, so this blog will potentially be less useful for them).  

Footnote

Despite the admonishments above, I hope you find the articles here interesting and useful, regardless of your language ability and period of stay.  Maybe you speak Japanese, but are weak at Kanji.  Perhaps you are stymied by financial terms and legal jargon.  Maybe you're a Japanese person who finds this page useful to practice your English.  Whatever the case, I wish you well.