How To Use A MUFG/UFJ ATM

Like I promised, I've finally put together a rudimentary guide to using your UFJ account to do bank transfers with their ATMs.

Although there IS an English menu, UFJ does NOT have a transfer button to do things like say, pay your rent or send money anywhere! For English, you only have access to basic functions like withdrawals, deposits and checking your bank balance.

This is the first screen you'll see as you approach the scary ATM machine. See that English button? Don't push it. It won't help you here. As indicated, hit that お振り込み (transfer "furikomi") button, and we're off!

This page lists after hours bank fees. When I did this, it was after hours so this probably won't come up if you do it in banking hours. Press that green button to continue.

This is just a fraud warning screen. Press the blue button on the left.

If you have the usual UFJ cash card, press the button indicated here. See that red button on the top, right hand corner? I like to call it the "abort" button. Screw up on any of the screens, press this to cancel your session. Über useful ne?

Next, enter your PIN number. Mine is.. nah, it's a secret.

If you make regular payments (say for rent), it's a great idea to get the staff to make a "furikomi cardo" (transfer card) for you at an ATM, which will bypass the next few steps of inputing the recipient's bank details all over again. Otherwise, good practise I suppose.

This is a list of banks. You'll have to use your eagle eyes to recognise a bit of kanji. UFJ branches are easier. If the bank is not listed here, press the "other banks" button.

If it IS a UFJ bank, select the branch here. UFJ branch not on this screen? Select the "more" button.

If it's an outside bank you select the first letter of the BANK's name. In this example, I'm looking for Kyoto Bank, so that would be "ki" (キ). You'll have to know your katakana alphabet here.

Ok, so here you see all the banks starting with "ki", the button I've marked is Kyoto Bank.

Now we have to get the BRANCH of the (in this case) Kyoto Bank. Again, select the first letter of the bank BRANCH's name.

The previous screen I just selected "ki", so here are the BRANCHES that start with "ki".

Ok, so now we have the bank and branch in place, we have to tell WHAT kind of account this is. In most cases it will be a standard bank account, so press the left button.

Enter the account number to send the money and press that green button.

Put in the transfer amount, hit the yen key, followed by the adjacent green button.

This just says it won't be processed until the next business day because it was out of banking hours at this time.

If you have some kind of special student/corporate number use the other button. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, press the button indicated.

EDIT: The "special number" 入力する (input) is a place where you can add a reference number if you need to: "I add my reference number with my Name in English - top-click on the left button: 入力する). I just hit a space after typing in my full name and then add my reference number. The receipt that the ATM spits out will show the 'transfer to-Bank details", and below that, my name in English on one line with the Reference number on another line." (Thanks Ken!)

This screen is just an identity check. If you see your name where it's indicated, press "はい" (yes).

This is a final check screen with all the details. Of course I've blanked out all the details for privacy. If it's all ok, press the green confirmation button!

Because I did this just for this demonstration I didn't go any further. From memory the following screens asks if you want a receipt and if you want to do any other transactions. Easy huh?

I'd just like to add a little disclaimer: While I think I've tried to do this walk-through as clear as I can. (I was drinking a can of chu-hi writing this) I take NO responsibility if somehow you cause earthquakes, tsunamis or send your money to my account by "accident". If you panic at any stage, hit that red "abort" button on most of the top right-hand screens, and ask for staff/security guard to help. I KNOW how stressful it is to work these things in Japanese.

An email has been sent to UFJ to add some English to bank transfers to hopefully rectify this situation in the future to make this post redundant, but personally I'm not holding my breath. Considering the amount of English speakers with UFJ accounts I don't think it's too much to ask, is it?

If you are a traveller here and have a foreign ATM card, you CAN'T use your card here at all. Instead go to Citibank where facilities like Cirrus allow you to use your home card.

If this helps anyone, please leave a comment of thanks. Just keeping my karma clean..

UPDATE: Apparently it is possible to have your account online now:

"I set myself up with an online MUFJ bank account. I can't read kanji but using Chrome Browser I could translate the essential Japanese. If you try and do it right, they'll send you this cute looking toy calculator, which is in fact, is a special password creator. When I'm working my way through the online MUFJ furikomi (bank transfer) windows I come to a page where I have to press the little red "1" on this cute little password creator, it gives me four numbers that I put in the password box. Pretty, pretty, pretty Cool.
Now I can do furikomi from the comfort of my home. That's all I use the online for, in addition to checking my balance. The only limitation with the online furikomi is that you can only transfer up to ¥100,000. However, at the bank branch ATM I transferred as much a ¥300,000."

(thanks to Ken!)

So there you go, maybe UFJ has actually done something to keep up with the times! (I wonder if the bank interest is still at 0.01%? LOL