Banks in Japan are insane. I’ve had a lot of trouble with them in the past, but SMBC just beat everything.
So far, it’s been four trips to the bank branch. Just to send $4,000 USD to a company in Hong Kong from my own company (LLC). My next trip to the bank will involve 60 pages of documentation.
Writing it here so I can blow a fuse.
First, you have to present a document that you can get from city hall and bring it to the bank.
Then you need your bank transaction booklet.
Then you need the invoice you have to pay.
Then you need the contract related to the invoice you have to pay.
Then you have to explain, in your own words, why you contracted with them.
Then, for each line on the invoice, they ask you what it’s for: “Ah, there’s a line saying you’re reimbursing some expenses. What are the expenses? What proof do you have? Where are the receipts?”
Then they question why the contract is one year old while the invoice is one month old, so I have to explain why I pay only once a year.
Then, in my transaction booklet, they spot a line: a transaction from a Japanese Bitcoin exchange!
Red alert => They ask me for a log of all the transactions on the exchange.
I send them the data file, but they reject it because the log I gave them doesn’t have my company’s name on it. So instead of giving them the raw data, I have to take a photo of my screen with my phone and print that.
Then they wonder why the exchange received money according to the exchange log, so I tell them that the company gets paid in Bitcoin.
Then they ask me which company paid me, along with the invoice and contract as proof.
Then they ask why the company didn’t send the money directly to the exchange. So I have to explain what a self-hosted Bitcoin wallet is and the benefits of it.
Then they ask for proof of my transactions in the self-hosted wallet. As before, they don’t trust a CSV file, so I need to take a screenshot of my Bitcoin wallet records on my BTCPay Server, with the name of my own company visible on it.
Keep in mind that EVERYTHING has to be printed on paper. NO DATA FILES ALLOWED.
It’s been four trips to the bank branch.
Every time, I get a different person who doesn’t understand Bitcoin, so I have to explain everything from scratch.
And now I’m just hoping they don’t notice that the money comes from the BTCPay Server Foundation, of which I’m the director, because if they see that, they’ll probably ask me for proof of the source of the BTCPay Server Foundation’s funds as well...
Which will probably mean another 100 pages of documentation.
Next trip I am bringing my PC, and a portable printer to the bank! I will be the one laughing this time.
Crypto platform Coinbase will soon join the Pokémon TCG craze with digital packs backed by real cards
Collectors can vault their pulls or have them shipped to their homes