BigFlyer

Last time I was in Japan (2005), I found that ATMs that accepted foreign cards were few and far between.

Is this still the case? Or has Japan caught up with the rest of the world and most/all ATMs now take cards from outside Japan?

RichardInSF

There are Citibank branches around Tokyo.

All post office ATMs take foreign cards, there are a lot of post offices.

All 7-11 ATMs take foreign cards but impose a Y250 charge on some of them (I think Cirrus is free or it it another one?)

Things are better than before.

BigFlyer

Marginally better, in that 7-11 takes them. Last time I was there post offices and Citibank took them as well.

Any idea why it is so difficult to use a foreign card in an advanced country like Japan? Xenophobia? Hatred of foreigners? It certainly feels like someone putting out the unwelcome mat, particularly in light of the fact that foreign cards are accepted in every ATM in many countries which are far, far, behind Japan technologically and in terms of wealth.

Let's put it this way - if US banks did not take foreign ATM cards, people on Flyertalk would be screaming about how America is so provincial, stupid, evil, etc.

ChrisLi

I think last time I use Japan Post ATM in Hokkaido and got a 110 Yen Transaction Fee on their side (and HKD 15 at my HSBC account )

Chapel Hill Guy

It's not. I've done two trips to Japan in the last month and every ATM I tried yielded cash. I didn't target a particular bank; they all worked.

railroadtycoon

I doubt it has anything to do with racism or xenophobia and more to do with the sometimes backwards Japanese Banking System and interbank networking they have.

For example some regular Japanese bank card "Cash Card" won't work in America either or any other international destination either, unless the card is tied to PLUS, STAR or other interbank network. Some Japanese banks issue special "International Cards" for travelers going overseas.
Other banks like Shinsei Bank are on the PLUS network already. Heck my Japanese card won't work at some other Japanese networks either. For banks in Japan it's all about partnerships with other banks and systems, some cards don't work on systems where there are no partnerships. So it's more with the sometimes backwards system then anything else.

Any case it's not in my opinion and it's not something worth pursing if you are trying to tie them together/ can't use ATM so it must be racism!!!... Though some people do like to try to tie things where there's nothing to tie.

I knew someone in another forum who was trying to say that the way the Japan Rail Pass was set up, it was racism FOR foreigners because they can't use ALL trains... I digress..

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Any case, JP Post Offices take them, and every place has a post office (minus minor small towns or villages).
Not just Post Offices, but Japan Post Bank ATMs can be found at other locations outside of Post Offices.
http://www.jp-bank.japanpost.jp/en/i...ias_index.html (post offices found virtually all over Japan, JPBank marked ATMs outside of Post Offices work the same as well)

Citibank Japan accepts cards on the PLUS/Star networks and most international cards as well:
http://www.citibank.co.jp/en/banking...atm/index.html

7-11 accepts cards as well, however it must be in 10,000 increments of withdrawal. 7-11 never charged my Bank of America card, however BofA charged me off network usage.
http://www.sevenbank.co.jp/intlcard/index2.html (Plenty of stores in many major cities, there are more 7-11 stores in Japan then there are in the entire US!)

Shinsei Bank also works with some foreign cards, but not all. YMMV
http://www.shinseibank.com/english/atm/location.html

808 Flyer

+1.

These are your best options. It has really got better in recent times. I like the Post Offices, as they are everywhere, but 7-11 is good too.

NickW

It's nothing like that at all. The problem exists even for the Japanese residents.

The ATM situation in Japan is a bit ridiculous. In the UK, for example, virtually all bank ATMs are part of the LINK network which is a collective agreement between banks to allow usage of other banks cards in their ATMs.

Nothing like this exists in Japan. Instead, there are lots of bilateral deals between banks. If you stop one time and look at the typical conbini ATM and see just how many different bank/card logos are on it, you'll understand.

I bank with Shinsei and know that I can use Shinsei, Seven Bank and SMBC ATMs pretty much freely; that means I'm good in a 7/11 conbini but not in a Lawson or a Sunkus.

It's more or less an accepted fact of life for a Japanese resident that your card won't work in 70% of the ATMs out there; and the same is true of international cards.

ksandness

On the other hand, Japan had ATMs before most of the U.S. did.

I came back from Japan in 1978, telling the folks back home about how you didn't have to go to the bank to get cash.

ninja138

Really? Were you looking at the right places? I lived in Japan during 2005 and I never had a problem finding an ATM that would take my Washington Mutual and Chase cards...

Of course by this reasoning, America must be isolationist and anti-global for still refusing to convert to chip-and-PIN cards and adopt IBAN transfers. I also don't see America adopting to widespread debit IC cards anytime soon (although it has been getting better the last 2 years).

railroadtycoon pretty much nailed it with his explanation. There are also regulatory factors, the ridicuously high interbank network fees, and the fact that there is little demand (for example, out of the 6 national banks, only 2 have ATMs with English screens).

kebosabi

I fail to understand these kinds of posts where the mind is set to a certain pivot and immediately associate that X can't be done at Y so it must be racism.

Every country has their regulations and issues that prohibit them from doing something. In Japan, it's because they spent so much money in the late 1970s and early 1980s to introduce the world's first ATM on an industry wide scale. Each of the banks set up their own systems which were incompatible with each other, but it did allow bank customers the convenience of withdrawing cash without ever going to the bank years before it became the norm elsewhere. After spending billions though, they became stuck with a chaotic situation where a card from bank A can't withdraw from an ATM at bank B, and when ATMs became more prevalent abroad, they also became incompatible with those cards as well. Only within the past decade did computers become smart enough to handle the different systems that each of the Japanese banks use.

In the US, it's the reluctance of the industry to convert to Chip & PIN; does that make the US racist/xenophobic/hatred of foreigners/distrust of anything that's European? No, it's because the cost of the switchover here didn't made sense to US banks. Debit/credit card fraud has been low for years compared to Europe, there's already millions of POS terminals at ATMs, retailers, and merchants that converting all of them is so cost-prohibitive. Only now are the US banks realizing their mistake of brushing this aside as now we're the ones isolated by the rest of the world in this, rising credit card fraud has come ashore to the US costing banks billions per year, and increasing number of Americans complaining that their US issued magnetic stripe credit cards are worthless abroad.

jib71

Deleted

NickP 1K

I've been using 7-11/Seven Bank machines more often than anything else... This has made using a foreign card MUCH easier in Japan. I've NOT had my credit union in the US charge me for it's use and I've not seen a supplemental charge - may just be my credit union.

Citibank machines are far and few between and Post office machines are OK but in a bind hard to find (plus a lot of the post offices I've been in have the older machines with the 20 year old ATM's that are not easy to navigate)

acregal

In Japan it's not regulations that are responsible for things but rather guidance from the government. Like the guidance that said ATMs shouldn't be open 24 hours (IIRC it was Citibank who went to court over that).

Part of the problem in Japan is that Japanese banks are hesitant to do anything (ATMs in the US were capable of handling multiple networks 20 years ago) and they would have to consistently pay money if using someone else's network and not their own proprietary network. A few years ago Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank refused to let their account holders use their cards at Tokyo Star Bank because of fees.

jpatokal

Unless things have changed, those fees are passed on directly to the account holder, and there are even fees from your own bank if you dare use their ATMs outside approved office hours.