Frequent payment from ATM? Add payee or get payee card

photo by chocogato

If you have been living in Japan for a while, you may have had a few occasions to transfer money to someone. As you may already know, you can make a bank transfer from an ATM in a branch office of the bank. However, making a payment via ATM can be time consuming as you have to manually enter payee’s bank detail. It may be fine if just a one-off payment, but if you have some recurring payment like rent or tuition fees, register your payees by making payee cards or add frequent payees to save time. You only have to enter payee’s bank detail at the first time and just use recorded data and skip procedures from next time.

About Japanese ATM

As you may already have noticed, it is quite common in Japan that you end up in a long queue before using ATM at a bank. This is because Japanese ATMs are capable of many other transactions in addition to withdrawal, deposit and account balance enquiry. In overseas, you probably use an ATM for cashing out and checking account balance, however in Japan, people use ATM as substitutes of bank tellers. Common transactions operated on bank ATMs include transferring funds to other bank account, depositing money in the same bank’s account and recording a bank book as well as ordinary withdrawal, deposit and enquiring account balance.

Payee card and “Add payee” on ATM

You can save the trouble of entering payee’s bank details by registering payee’s bank detail: making a payee card or adding payee on ATM.

Payee card

Payee card is small card issued at ATM that bank detail of a specific payee is recorded such as name of the bank, account type and account number. By using a payee card, you can make a payment from an ATM without entering payee’s bank detail. Mizuho Bank and some other local banks issue payee cards. Payee card can be used only on ATMs of the bank that issued it.

Adding payees

You can record payee’s bank details in your bank card. All the three megabanks, Mizuho Bank, MUFG, SMBC provide this service. Also, there are many other banks that offer the same service. “Add payee” service is designed for regular payment to the same payee, therefore payee information may be automatically deleted if no transaction is made to the payee for a certain period of time.

How to make a payee card/add a payee

You can make a payee card or add a payee via bank ATM. Firstly, you need to make a payment as usual.

Tap “お振込み (bank transfer)”.
Choose payment method from “Cash (現金)” and “Bank account (キャッシュカード)”, and insert your bank card if you chose “Bank account”.
Enter your contact number including area number.
Enter your name. If you chose “Bank account” at step2, your name comes up on the screen. Change your name if you wish.
Select payee’s bank, branch and account type and enter payee’s account number.
Enter the amount you wish to pay.
If you are paying by cash, choose from “Notes, “Notes and coins” and “Coins”, then place the exact sum of the amount you wish to pay and transaction fee on the tray. If you transferring fund from your account, check if the amount is correct and tap “Confirm (確認)”, or tap “correct (訂正)” to change the amount.
You will be asked if you make a payee card or add payee, then tap “Yes (はい)”.
Take a transaction slip and payee card or your bank card with payee’s information recorded.

※Next time you send money to the same payee, insert the payee card or select the payee’s name at step3.

Save time!

Internet banking have been a lot more common comparing to a decade ago, however, there are still a large number of people who avoid online banking due to concerns for security or little number of banking. Also, the great capability and convenience of Japanese ATMs may be part of the reason. Funds transfer function of Japanese ATM is handy, but entering same bank details many times is quite troublesome. If you need to make payments regularly, use payee cards or add your payees.