Lately I got fed up with transferring money from the UK to Japan since it is kind of awkward having to use the telephone to do so and explaining every time what the money is for.

So my plan now is to create a PayPal account that is linked to a Japanese bank and verified via a Japanese Visa card deposit.

As a registered alien resident, it’s easy to open a Bank account in Japan. So I will open a new Bank account solely for business transactions and withdrawing cash from an ATM. This is so that I don’t mix personal spending up with business related expenses.

And I will ask (or rather a Japanese friend will) if the Bank will allow smooth transfers from PayPal to my bank account. If they don’t know what PayPal is, I will use another bank I think.

The VISA card is required to fund your PayPal account so it can be used for business. This is vital since you must have a business account to implement the PayPal buy buttons and use IPN (Instant Payment Notification).

For the VISA card, I am applying for it through Suruga bank but am on my 3rd attempt since it is so difficult to provide the application form in the exact format that they require. But I am very close to success now, having got them to adjust the size of their name input field to accept my name.

I am sure many potential customers must have given up applying for this since you have to use the correct version of Hiragana etc when filling in the online web form and it takes minutes for the web pages to load.

But the attraction of earning income from the web in Yen and being able to easily transfer it to my local bank and withdraw it from an ATM is very appealing.

Hopefully I can post news of a successful outcome from this exercise later.

If you have any input on this topic, please add your comment …

Filed under: Life in Japan by blogmaster No Comments »