Money in Japan

[but Japan doesn't]

One of those annoying things about Japan is the banking system. My finances are simplified by the fact that everything I do is through the post office. Japanese post offices offer banking, money transfer, and pension help in addition to traditional postal services. But the post office does present the same challenges that the rest of the Japanese banking system does, most notably ATM machines whose hours reflect those of the teller inside (including closure on weekends and holidays). Why ATMs close at night in Japan is an inconvenient mystery to everybody from a foreign country.

And Japan doesn’t accept foreign credit cards, either, for the mysterious and ubiquitous reason of ‘security.’ Seriously, are American credit cards not credible enough? This is almost entirely a cash-based economy. From what I hear, it’s very challenging to even get a Japanese credit card, so it’s just easier to carry huge quantities of cash around. The only way for me to pay my Yahoo! Auctions winning bid is through one of numerous bank transfer services. But it has to be the same one that the seller accepts, which means it’s far more complicated than the Ebay system of check, money order, or Paypal.

It’s annoying and makes me thankful that I don’t really spend money or travel much.