Purchasing From Japan - Payment Methods

[Ray Singer]

Hi all, I am curious what payment methods individuals are using to purchase from Japan and see the best conversion rates. The last few pieces I bought were done through Wells Fargo wire transfer and the markup to convert to Yen was quite high. I am getting ready to add a new piece to my collection and am revisiting the issue. Would appreciate hearing how others are doing this.

 

Many thanks,

Ray

[Fuuten]

I'm from the Netherlands. I simply used an international transfer from my personal bank, was pretty straightforward here.

[Stephen]

I used to do a bank wire, now its PayPal 

[jason_mazzy]

paypal hits your for 2.5% on the conversion fee

[cuttingedge59]

Hi

I use Forex which is a wire transfer company that deposits the funds direct into the receipt's bank account .

Exchange rates are always better than the banks.

You do need to set up an account with them but is easy and they do have a minimum transfer amount which here is 1k .

Regards

Chris nz

[Shamsy]

Credit cards are simple and usually have a low conversation fee (mine does anyway). There can be other fees to, but all up they're so very much lower than paypal in my experience.

[Kronos]

Hi

I use Forex which is a wire transfer company that deposits the funds direct into the receipt's bank account .

Exchange rates are always better than the banks.

You do need to set up an account with them but is easy and they do have a minimum transfer amount which here is 1k .

Regards

Chris nz

 

I use another wire transfer company currencies direct who had the best rates at the time. Basically paypal will screw you the most (their rates are quite frankly scandalous) but ok for small amounts, followed by your bank, then CC's but wire transfer by these intermediate companies is the best but it needs to be a significant amount like £500+.

[Kronos]

Just checking their rates now for £100 I get 162.26 yen/£ which doesn't go up until I hit £600 which is 166.5071 then goes up slowly to 166.9 for £10k. Consider the inter-bank/forex exchange rate is 168.89 this is fantastic.

[Gasam]

Hi,

 

I use the international bank transfer system. It hsa worked without flaw for me.

Have not checked exchange rates so carefully though, maybe I should.

[Kronos]

Hi,

 

I use the international bank transfer system. It hsa worked without flaw for me.

Have not checked exchange rates so carefully though, maybe I should.

 

Not sure how your bank is but for me £1000 gets me 161479 yen including the £10 fee. The recieving bank may charge a small fee as well so not good for small payments. In comparison using CD I get 166387 yen, so a saving of £30. Not a huge amount but it can add up the larger it is. It's good also as in the summer I bought a few hundred thousand yen to pay for a polish when it's complete next month when the exchange rate was 190:1 knowing that it would likely go down which is just held in my currency account until i need it. Shame i didn't do the same for the $ when it was 1.6:1

[Ray Singer]

This has been very helpful, thank you all for the feedback.

 

Best regards,

Ray

[Jean]

International Bank Transfer taking into account the amounts transfered > 10k€.

[Ray Singer]

Thanks Jean, payment completed today by Bank Wire. Again, appreciate everyone's feedback.

 

Best regards,

Ray