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?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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 For example, all my utilities are withdrawn automatically from my bank account every month.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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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