Banking and the postoffice

[Tim33]

Well i will be moving to Japan for one years study in 4 weeks time.

What do i do about banking. I have been told that being who i am i am not allowed a bank account for about 2-3 months but i can set one up with the Postoffice.

Here is the thing. My student loan gets paid into my English bank account. I cant get it paid into a Japanese one because i dont have it yet. I need my loan.

How do i go about getting my banks money while im over in Japan without it costing me anything. Am i able to get the postoffice in Japan to access my account in England and transfer the cash for free. If not then what is my uni thinking sending me to Japan with no access to money?

Im asking here before i goto my bank and ask because many of you may of had the same problem or know of what to do.
Banks are hot, stuffy and they lie.

 

[nice gaijin]

The post office is the official bank of Japan, I would recommend getting an account there anyways, but the expats would be better suited to make that recommendation than I. You definitely should be able to transfer money from the post office; whether it's free or not, I'm not sure. At most, it'd probably be a couple pounds per transfer. I see no reason why they couldn't do it. As a last resort, you could have money wired to you from home.

when I was over there, I was able to pull cash out of the ATM at the Post Office, except it was sucking the money out of my checking account instead of my savings. thankfully I had overdraft protection but each time it cost me 3 bucks. I never bothered to ask someone in the post office since the ATM seemed to work fine to me (it would only say what I was withdrawing, no balances were on my receipts).