These last couple days I’ve been working hard trying to buy a computer in America and have it shipped to Hawaii so that I can pick it up this summer when we’re there visiting. I think I finally found a way to do it, but there are a remarkable amount of roadblocks and obstacles to overcome to do it. Who knew giving somebody money could be so difficult?
That got me to thinking about banking in Japan versus the United States. I could write for a long time about my good and bad experiences in banking in both countries. Today I just want to talk about one interesting difference: checks.
In Japan, there are no personal checks. There’s a big difference right there. Towards the end of my stay in America I had started moving away from using checks, and started moving towards using my debit card to take money directly out of my checking account.
Japan is a cash-centric society, so most people carry around lots of cash all the time. Nobody blinks an eye if you use the equivalent of a $100 bill to buy a soda. The situations when you might normally write a check are handled electronically by ATMs and banks. For example, all my utilities are withdrawn automatically from my bank account every month. Otherwise, I use cash to buy stuff on a day to day basis. If there is a big purchase, I go to the bank and withdraw the cash, or use a credit card that is linked to my bank account. Easy.
The really cool part of the Japanese banking system (and there aren’t that many cool parts, to be honest) is the electronic wire transfer system. From an ATM I can put money into any bank account that I like. It costs about $2 to do normally, and the people get the money the same day. I signed up for online banking so I can do it from my home computer for free. You can even buy big items online and just send them the money right away – it’s just as easy as a credit card.
Anyway, as you might expect there are lots of differences, and working in both systems really highlights those differences sometimes. Hopefully I’ll get this all worked out before the trip to Hawaii…
