No more Snoopy Bankbook! :-(

[Taro Toporific]

Snoopy, Bugs Shown The Door As Japanese Banks Get Tough
For years financial institutions here have relied on a cavalcade of cutesy cartoon characters to be the public face of banking, plastering them on ATM cards and featuring them in ad campaigns. But with the financial footing of these banks appearing increasingly shaky lately, many are now rushing to discard their Mickey Mouse image for something with a little more gravitas.

[Big Booger]

I am tired of all the cutesy crap prevailing Japanese culture. Bring on the boring! I mean no more cartoon characters, no more color.. let's make em black and white, and plain jane.
No more doraemon, hello kitty, snoopy, mickey mouse crap!!
BB

[gaijinzilla]

Sacrilegious

[ramchop]

No more doraemon, hello kitty, snoopy, mickey mouse crap!!
BB

Yes, let's live in a world where Anpanman rules supreme!

[Steve Bildermann]

Comparing the Japanese banking system and the US.

A few years ago I opened a BOA account in San Diego. I planned to use it to pay small bills while I was visiting from time to time. To start off I deposited $500 into the checking and left it there while I came back to Japan. Eight months later I returned to San Diego and found out that during the eight months while I had been gone BOA had nickel and dimed my account with so many small charges the entire deposit was gone and I owed them $42.

Contrast that with 67,000 yen left in (orginally) Dai Ichi Kangyo (now Mizuho) for 11 years - untouched. Not much interest but it did get up to 81,000.

NO CHARGES AT ALL.

It seem American Banks think up new charges every week.

[Big Booger]

BOA blows like a bangkok honey..
I agree Japanese banks are in general much better than American banks, except, as I live out in the inaka, there is no way to get money out after 9:00pm... all the atms, banks, and branches are closed... which is a big deal, but it could be in certain situations. I have never found a mistake with my J-bank. I like how it balances my bank book for me, and I also like the no fee approach. I just hate the cutesy crap..
Why don't they use famous paintings for the covers, movies or landscapes..?

BTW:
I actually have anpanman posters in my apaato hehehe
BB

[ramchop]

I just hate the cutesy crap..
Why don't they use famous paintings for the covers, movies or landscapes..?

Well I for one am jealous of your cutesy crap bankbook. My (Mizuho) is a drab plain blue and white. Maybe I'll go to the hyaku yen shop and buy some stickers so I don't feel so left out. Wanna swap?

[Steve Bildermann]

BOA blows like a bangkok honey..
I agree Japanese banks are in general much better than American banks, except, as I live out in the inaka, there is no way to get money out after 9:00pm... all the atms, banks, and branches are closed... which is a big deal, but it could be in certain situations. BB

Actually here in Nagoya you can use UJF ATMs at quite a few conbini (Lawson is one) 24 hours a day. They charge you 108 yen per transaction for after hours (9pm-7am) and you can't do furikomi yet but they say you will be able to do from July. Also from July you'll be able to use the IY banking system that allow you to draw from several banks and the post office.

Also I use UJF online banking which is pretty smooth. Anybody else tried online banking?

[kamome]

I have a Citibank account here (and formerly had an Asahi bank account in Saitama). It is my experience that Japanese banks pretty much suck:

J-Bank ATMs are not 24 hours, or charge extra for after-hour use (Citibank has 24-hour ATMs, but they are fewer in number and harder to get to);

Online banking with Citibank is unwieldy and inconvenient with all of the unneeded security protocols, time-out problems, etc;

You can't earn a nickel of interest in a J-Bank;

Lobby hours are nonexistent.

Of course it's nice not to be levied charges on your J-account like is commonly done in the States, but the US banks tend to provide better service overall and more reliable internet/phone banking.

[Steve Bildermann]

Which shows you how mileage may differ in Japan.

I could find no redeeming factor in banking with BOA. British banks are no better *except* for the amazing co-op bank which has branches in every store and pays great interest on all accounts.

Like many J-folks I have about nine bank accounts (don't ask me how they just sort of mulitiplied all on their own)

UJF (previously Tokai) has always been good to me. From them I have got personal and business loans, credit cards and *wait for this* cos you ain't gonna believe it - an OVERDRAFT allowance. All of this stems from when I was rich and famous back in the eighties and I used to do so much business with them they would sent two bank tellers to my office to do my banking for me. Ahhhhhhh dem were da days.

Now I just shuffle along with the rest at the ATM.

BUT I HAVE FUCKING GREAT MEMORIES SO THERE!!!!

[Taro Toporific]

Which shows you how mileage may differ in Japan.
... when I was rich and famous back in the eighties and I used to do so much business with them they would sent two bank tellers to my office to do my banking for me. Ahhhhhhh dem were da days.

NATSUKASHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiii!

I think my two funniest J-banking moments were:

1. Peak-of-the-Bubble 1988 --- Bankers with bribes ("gifts") came to the office every week to BEG for me, a clueless alien, to borrow money for a condo or business.

2. The same butt-head bucho bankers who dragged in a sleepless and bruised shinjin female teller "apologize" and return to me a 3 yen error she made in my account.

Now, all those butt-head buchos are fired and sleeping at home or Kannai station.

[den4]

oooooh, replacing cutesy crap with business seriousness, as if that's going to change the banks' problems...

I'd say the keep the cutesy stuff and get rid of their upper management...

[GomiGirl]

I wonder how much the licencing fees for the characters added up to?

[den4]

very much less than lame arse upper management folks who probably haven't done anything to fix their banking problems....