Job Discussion Forums

[zander7990]

heres a strange question...

i have a visa card from canada which i still have to pay off. its from the scotia bank. each month, i send money home to pay for the bill but i was wondering if there is an easier way of doing it here in japan. i know i can easily get a japanese visa card and transfer the balance over to it but then i lose out on the really low interest rate i have with my canadian CC. wat are my options in this case besides sending money home?

thanx

[JimDunlop2]

I rarely give a definitive answer -- but this one's pretty straight-forward... There is no third option here.

Visa cards are issued through financial institutions... I don't know if I've ever seen JUST a Visa card... It's either a Scotiabank Visa or a TD Visa, or Royal Bank Visa, or whatever. Since your account resides with the issuing institution, I don't see how you could NOT send money to that institution. The only thing you can monkey around with, is HOW you send that money home. I know most people usually send a postal money order but that just doesn't suit my lifestyle. I too want to have as few steps as possible to get from A to B.

The most painless way to pay a credit card back home (in my opinion) is this: use Japanese Internet banking to "furikomi" your money to a Canadian bank account (using Lloyds) then use Canadian Internet banking to make your credit card payment. I can do everything from my computer chair, and it all takes less than 5 minutes... (Given the fact that I need to wait about 48 hours for the money to make it to Canada).

I don't think it can get much easier than that....

[canuck]

I don't think it's easy to get a Japanese credit card for most people nor do I think it's easy to transfer the balance from a Canadian credit card to a Japanese one.

If you are sending money home, why don't you have online banking set up. Send money home and make credit card payments over the internet. How much do you owe? Unless your financially screwed, couldn't you just pay the whole thing in a couple months max?

[Willy_In_Japan]

[shadowsinner]

this maybe a little off topic, but what is furikomi?

i gather its something like TT wiring? in order to xfer funds to another country.. how much would each xfer cost?? must be quite a bit!