Digital bank that offers the perfect savings account backed by reputable Japanese bank
The other negative reviews do not do justice, as I think Jenius Bank is the perfect savings account. Yes, Jenius Bank is new, but they are also under the SMBC group, the largest Japanese bank by deposit and the 12th largest bank worldwide with an excellent reputation. Their reputation, plus the FDIC insurance and excellent APY, gave me the confidence to open an account.
Compared to other digital banks, Jenius Bank lacks features such as a smartphone app with a nice UI and bucketing. But I do not see this as a drawback, as the whole purpose of having a savings account is to save money, and psychologically, a nice UI makes it too easy for me to check my balance and withdraw money. The limited web-based UI is perfect for me as I want to save my paycheck slowly for bigger future goals.
Similarly, while other banks offer nice bonuses, I do not find those perks appealing as they tend to involve complicated schemes. I just wanted an account that I could keep long-term and gain compounding interest as easily as depositing money in and out without thinking about achieving a certain minimum balance.
Opening an account was also very easy. It only took Jenius Bank one day to review my application. Once approved, linking my checking account and depositing some funds was very smooth.
Withdrawal to the external bank account, on the other hand, can be a little tricky. I wanted to withdraw some funds to my external checking account, but the transaction was not automatically transferred and instead had to be manually reviewed by a human. The fraud team then called me to clarify that they had to ensure the external checking account was mine.
They also assured me that this manual review was just a one-time thing as the external checking account was different than the checking account I used to deposit funds to the account. After the fraud team confirmed that the external checking account was mine, they approved the transaction, and I received my funds the next business day.
I think this is the part that the negative reviews on the savings account are about, as they may not feel comfortable sharing personal banking documents, which, as a result, leads to application rejection and inability to withdraw funds. Personally, I do not see this as a problem because I would rather share my documents than have the fraud team not do their job, which could risk scams/ fraudulent transactions going unchecked.
The withdrawal process does take 2-3 business days as Jenius Bank has to review transactions first. Indeed, this feels slow, but again, this is a good system in the greater scheme. If it is not easy to withdraw my funds anytime I want, it encourages me to save long-term.
A digital savings account backed by a reputable big Japanese bank and FDIC insured with simple web-based UI and high APY. If assurance, simplicity, and a high interest rate are what you are looking for, then Jenius Bank is perfect for you.
Date of experience: July 08, 2024