Important Matters Concerning Foreign Currency Deposits
Overview
You can make Outgoing foreign currency remittances in Sony Bank's 11 supported currencies. You can make remittances directly from either your Sony Bank Yen or Foreign currency savings account to financial institutions in Japan or overseas.
After you register your beneficiary's details, you can make an Outgoing foreign currency remittance application online 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (except for system maintenance hours).
With our industry-competitive foreign exchange fees and remittance charges, you can save on costs when making foreign currency remittances. Remittance charges can be waived up to three times per month depending on your Club S membership level.
11 Currencies Available
With Sony Bank, you can remit foreign currency remittances in the following 11 currencies: Yen, US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc, Hong Kong Dollar, South African Rand, and Swedish Krona.
If you wish to make a remittance of Yen to a domestic financial institution using your Yen savings account, please make a fund transfer instead.
Sony Bank cannot make remittances in Chinese Yuan (CNH) and Brazilian Real.
Who Can Use This Service?
You can make foreign currency remittances if you are an individual customer, a resident of Japan, and have an account at Sony Bank.
Outgoing foreign currency remittances are only available to customers physically located in Japan.
If the customer himself/herself is the beneficiary of an overseas remittance made using their own Sony Bank account, the customer is required to submit a Tax Residency Form for Remittance with their address, country (country of residence), and taxpayer identification number for the country in which they will receive their remittance. Please request the required documents from our English help desk.
Purpose of Remittance
This service is limited to non-business funds such as personal funds, living expenses, salary, pension, and funds for education.
Sony Bank cannot accept Incoming foreign currency remittances for business funds.
Business funds refers to sales, working capital and funds for business investment associated with ongoing production, sales or services provided by the customer, regardless of whether the customer is a corporation or an individual.
Outgoing Foreign Currency Remittance Procedure
Outgoing foreign currency remittances require pre-application of recipient information and remittance limits. After pre-registration is complete, you will be able to make remittance requests.
The details of your pre-registration and Outgoing foreign currency remittance shall be verified based on Sony Bank's prescribed methods at the time of remittance.
Remittance That Cannot Be Handled by Sony Bank
The remittance being made to a country or territory that is non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (such as Syria, Yemen, Iran, North Korea, and other countries and territories identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as having significant strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering and terrorist financing) or to an overseas branch or subsidiary of a bank headquartered in such a jurisdiction.
Please note that we will not be able to process remittances where the beneficiary or the purpose of the remittance is in violation of Japanese Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act or regulations set forth by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"), or where the remittance is otherwise unacceptable for legal or regulatory reasons.
The Ministry of Finance has issued a document regarding restrictions on remittances under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act. Please check the Ministry of Finance website (available in Japanese) for details.
Ministry of Finance (Links to Ministry of Finance website)
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Verification at the time of remittance
Sony Bank is strengthening its measures against money laundering and terrorist financing. In regards to the use of foreign currency remittance services, we are tightening our verification process at the time of pre-registration and remittance execution in an effort to more appropriately and strictly comply with Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law ("Foreign Exchange Law") and other related legislation. In light of this, we may need to confirm additional details of remittances during both pre-registration and/or remittance execution stages.
This additional verification may take several days, so please ensure you allow plenty of time for us to process your transaction. In addition, we reserve the right to refuse the transaction depending on screening results. We ask for your kind understanding and cooperation.
We ask for your cooperation in preventing and countering money laundering and terrorist financing, which is an act of hiding criminal-related funds. ("AML/CFT")
The details of your outgoing foreign currency remittance shall be verified by Sony Bank's prescribed methods at the time of remittance.
During the verification process, you may be asked to submit documents that can confirm the purpose of remittance, source of remittance funds, and relationship to the beneficiary.
Sony Bank shall verify the remittance details requests based on our methods whenever a remittance is requested in accordance with the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds ("Criminal Proceeds Act"), the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act ("Foreign Exchange Act"), and other relevant laws and regulations on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism.
As a general rule, after confirming the details of the pre-registration remittance request, we will ask the customer to submit in writing the purpose of the remittance, the source of the remitted funds, and documents that confirm the relationship with the beneficiary.
Sony Bank will share the name and address of your bank and account number information with the related banks.
Sony Bank cannot disclose the details of the prescribed verification criteria to avoid unauthorized verification.
If Sony Bank needs to confirm whether your remittance complies with other laws and regulations, Sony Bank will contact you for confirmation. If Sony Bank is unable to contact you after a certain period, your pre-registration or remittance may be canceled (declined).
