Re: [tlug] Receiving money internationally

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephenjturnbull@example.com>]

Raymond Wan writes:

 > Compared to what others have said, perhaps this is a bit low
 > tech...but one other option is for them to mail a cheque (I guess
 > "bank draft" is a more correct term?) drawn from a Japanese bank.

Thanks for the suggestions.

The problem with a draft is that they're rarely used as far as I know,
and suffer extremely high fees compared even to wire transfers.  The
nominal time to clear for any paper instrument is quite long as
mentioned by Benjamin, at least at my usual bank.  Seems risky.

 > I think one downside is taxes.  I'm not sure how that would be done...

I'm not worried about taxes; I'm getting multiple of the wage of the
English teachers I know, and significantly more than I would be paid
on a per-course basis as an free-lance adjunct instructor.  And it's
more fun. ;-)

 > Another idea I just had is that HSBC is a UK bank and it seems to
 > have a Japanese branch (https://www.hsbc.co.jp/).

This doesn't work as I would hope (based on a friend's experience with
a Japanese bank with international branches,at least not up to about
2014, for any two of JP, US, CA).  As heavily regulated *banks*, they
have to be separate corporate entities and obey different regulations
at each end.  It's possible that the holding company has some internal
economies but from the customer's point of view they charge more or
less market fees.  And Japanese banks suck at cross-division operation
(how many times has Mizuho's ATM system crashed since the merger? ;-).

So I think that the way to go is either a primarily online bank like
Shinsei, a money transmitter like Wise, or my primary bank (direct
salary deposit, mortgage).

Thanks again!

Steve