With the coming sale of the retail banking operations of Citibank in Japan, many of the bank's customers here are looking for an alternative, especially if those customers want to transfer money to and from overseas. Japanese banks tend to be disappointing when it comes to this type of service, but they are also becoming less appealing in terms of other matters most people used to take for granted.
For instance, we have done most of our banking with the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ for many years, but since we moved out of Tokyo we've had to carry out local transactions at convenience stores because there are no MUFG branches or ATMs anywhere near our home, even though we live in a populous and growing suburb of Tokyo.
So we've been looking to change banks, and have found that new financial services provided by retailers and IT-related firms are more attractive than what's available from so-called mega-banks. A recent article in the Asahi Shimbun described how the retail giant Aeon has been signing up new customers for its banking business by offering services that regular banks can't . . . or won't.