Japan is still stuck in the early 90s when it comes to financial systems and banks

​I used to work for a Japanese company before the dark times, before the 'rona and I spent a lot of years in Japan. When people ask me “ crypto is surely popular in Japan” and “they have cyborg ninjas flying around with laser wallets and shit right?” I can only nod slowly while cringing on the inside knowing how old and slow Japanese financial system actually is.Japanese still to this day rely on bank books. Remember those? We had them in early-mid 90s here in EU, so most younger people dont even remember them. In Japan a bank book is everything. You need it for getting an apartment, smartphone at mobile operators, even as odd stuff as signing up for some memberships (even for visa if I recall correctly). . In 2020 there was even a campaign by MUFG bank giving their clients 1000 yenreward if they give up the bank books in exchange for a digital equivalent .There is still much to be done regarding digitalization in Japanese banks. Most banks still use fax machines to send their clients documents around from branches to headquarters and vice versa. Fax or phone call is still the golden standard in 2022. Most banks are open from 9:00 to 15:00 and you are out of luck on weekends. ATMs? Even though some of them are 24/7 nowadays, most of them still stop working after 21:00. (Wtf right?). And withdrawing money off ATM costs a kidney!That mentality shows in crypto too. Among younger population very very few care about it. Most still remember the MtGox scandal and are to this day suspicious of crypto. Im of course generalizing but people that I keep contacts with are mostly feeling like that.Japan is still the country where an average adult has 10 or more bank accounts. Thats right, 10. Not a typo. Amount of cash held by a household is insane, close to 18 million yen for average household Source. That's about 150k USD.​All this, combined with a negative interest rate that Japan has been hit with since 2011, I think that a Japanese will sooner or later turn start turning to crypto. I only hope that they will be willing to overcome the technical barrier on near future and leave the traditional finances in the past where they belong.

Submitted February 04, 2022 at 10:50PM