Ever been to a Japanese bank? Perhaps to send some money to your starving parents back in United States? Or used an ATM machine to take out some cash?
Well, if you were in a normal country, these kind of things are taken for granted. In Japan, however, everything is different.
Let's look at ATM machines. They are everywhere. Each bank has at least one or usually more than one machine inside. They are routinely used for daily bank operations (more on that later). The problem? The ATM machines close shortly after the bank closes (usually around 6 or 7pm). So if you want to take out some cash at 2am, you are shit out of luck.
Now, lets try another scenario. Your family member in U.S. is dying and needs $10000 for an operation. You want to send some money there as soon as possible, and you can't find a western union office anywhere. Don't fear! Your local bank will be more than glad to transfer any amount of your hard-earned money into any country of your choice. After spending half an hour figuring out transfer forms that even Japanese people can't read, you are finally ready to transfer money out of the account handled by that bank to U.S. Common sense tells you that since you are inside a bank, and transferring money out of your account in that bank, that the operator will be able to deduct money out of your account and just "electronically" transfer it, right? WRONG. This is where the closed-after-7-pm ATM machine comes in. You walk over to the ATM machine, insert your card, and take out $10000 in 10000-yen bills. In beginning of 2002, that would amount to 1320000Yen, or 132 pieces of paper. Not bad, but not exactly the kind of cash you'd like to carry around with you, even if its only a few meters from the ATM back to the bank counter. So, you took out $10000 out of your "account", and you hand it to the clerk. They go count it twice to make sure, and then prepare money for "transfer". Depending on where you "send" this to, it'll take from a few days to few weeks. Receiving money from U.S. is impossible, it'll take months to clear.
Everything in Japan is paid for with cash. Credit cards are definitely not welcome, and places are picky about accepting cards not from that particular place. Sorry, you cant use ABC Visa card in this store, you can only use BCA Visa card here. I've seen some fat jap pay a $3000 plane ticket with a huge wad of 1000 yen bills he pulled out of his fat back pocket.
According to one jap I had a semi-intelligent conversation with a few weeks ago, 24hr ATM machines were actually implemented in Japan at one point inside some convenience store chain. And, were promptly removed shortly after because the entire country's population resisted to "change" and thought 24H open ATM machines were so unbelievably wrong they had to be removed immediately. He also mentioned something about "Security Reasons" though I doubt it, even in Alaska the 24H ATM in my bank had a security slide slot that opened the door when you swiped the ATM card you were about to use across it.