Shinsei was easy to work with (for a business account), have English language online banking and telephone support. Never had an issue with foreign transfers.
Does help to have a Japanese friend who can help when opening the account, etc, and it’s important to find accounting and legal help that speak English.
Shinsei is the most foreigner friendly bank in Tokyo, bar none. They're known for it, and they make their services convenient -- go there.
Initially you might have some trouble with the Address/Phone Number/Bank Account requirements, because they're almost all required at nearly the exact same time, making some weird pseudo requirement stalemate but here's what you do:
1. Get a place to live (likely through some online agency before you get to japan -- you're gonna pay a premium)
2. Register with your local ward office, get your foreigner card, which will have your address on the back and your face on the front
3. Get a phone at UQ Mobile (or whichever carrier will give you one, more choices if you have a longer VISA), IIRC the only real hard requirement is a credit card.
4. Get a bank account (phone required)
NOTE: some places will even let you pay for your apartment with a credit card
Oh BTW when I did this, I avoided the requirement stalemate by staying with a friend (thus I had a place to "live" at) when I arrived, and a phone number I could use (friend's phone number). It is possible to secure a place to live before you get to japan, there are sites that cater to foreigners for this purpose and will get you set up almost completely before you arrive so you just sign some paperwork when you arrive and have a place to live.
You get the card at the airport, but it's useless without the stamp. Can confirm that the dependency graph stated by the parent is a (the?) correct way to navigate the system. The only thing I'd modify is that you can save money by bringing your own phone, and getting a phone+data SIM card from Bic, which you can set up on a recurring plan with a foreign credit card.
Yeah, it's been so long that I actually forgot the proper (I think) way to go through it, and that it was actualy easier for me because I had contacts/friends willing to help.
The problem with the phone+data sim thing is that you need an actual callable phone number, a lot of the time. Also, you can tell what numbers are used for in Japan by how they start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Japan#Non... , and some places will be sticklers about it.
One sad/funny thing is that I actually needed a phone number to get a place to live as well, but actually my agent just used their own temporarily (literally right in front of the leasing agent, and they didn't care). I get the feeling that if you get a place from abroad they'll overlook that/work that out somehow, even if you don't have an agent that was as understanding/nice/flexible as mine.
Oh, if you have a phone+SIM card from Bic, you get a number. You need a non-tourist visa for that one, though...which means you need the stamped gaijin card.
I never had issues with anyone being snobby about the number, but I was in a bigger city, so maybe I had it easy.
(My sad/funny story was that in order to cancel the recurring phone payment, I needed to receive a text message to the phone number I was cancelling. But I had left the country by that point, and the SIM didn't work for international SMS. So I was screwed. I just told my credit card company to reject the recurring billing, and thus I'm probably blackballed from all future SIM-card purchasing in Japan.)
For personal accounts Shinsei is fine. For business, not so much. They only do Japanese speaking, they require IE for certificate pinning I believe, and a lot of banks charge extra for online banking even.
Rakuten Bank is the best for startups I think, but you still need a Japanese speaking person in the company.
Please excuse my ignorance, but why would you start a business in a country you don't understand its language?
Doesn't sound logical to me, except if there's a big part of the country that doesn't speak that language or something bizarre like that.
(this is a serious question, but I'm unable to phrase it this late in a way that doesn't sound like I'm trying to provoke you)
In Tokyo it is possible to get a job as a software developer without speaking Japanese. After living here a couple years someone decides they like life here, but want to run their own business. Maybe they want to run a SaaS or something that targets a global audience. For visa purposes, they need a Japanese company.
By this time they’ve maybe picked up up some basic Japanese but aren’t fluent. Becoming fluent in a language is quite challenging, especially if you’re working full time in an English language environment. Even without fluency, it’s possible to enjoy life here.
What makes you think that? Japanese is just a normal language. You have to study vocabulary and grammar and interact enough with native speakers to learn expressions. The writing system and the lack of cognates makes it harder for an English speaker than, say, Swedish, but there is no reason to believe that you can't ever reach full professional proficiency.
The British Empire did it successfully for centuries.
These days, it doesn't even take an army. Anglophone chauvinism is actually growing in many ways. In another generation or so even Japan will have a sizable expat class that stops bothering to learn the local language.
Anecdotally from living there for a few years, it was way more common to meet older expats living there with little to no Japanese than it was to meet younger expats, so long as they weren't totally brand new. There's quite a few people who went there during the bubble period that seem proud of the fact that ordering a beer is the extent of their Japanese despite living there for years.
Its much easier to learn the language now with the internet, and Tokyo offers near free lessons all over the city that are staffed by volunteers. Had one friend who came in with absolutely zero Japanese and by the end of his first year was understanding conversations. I see the opposite happening.
I actually agree with your point of view, too. It is getting easier to learn languages and the number of resources only grow.
There are two simultaneous trends. On the one hand the number of people who expect people everywhere to accommodate them in English is increasing. Their ability to remain in an English bubble is stronger than ever, thanks to Netflix, Google Maps, Spotify and online news sites. On the other hand, those who are motivated to learn are making more progress than ever before and they can get very, very far before moving abroad.
We have the same trend with computer literacy. There is a generation of people who have grown up with impenetrable walled garden mobile devices and would be completely lost on a command line. There's also a subset of that generation who has learned more about computing through MOOCs, Github and YouTube than their parents learned over decades of practice that early PCs essentially forced upon users.
Does help to have a Japanese friend who can help when opening the account, etc, and it’s important to find accounting and legal help that speak English.