Sending money to UK from Japan

Hello everyone! Two quick questions for anyone kind enough to help.

I have a JP post office account and I'm looking to send around 500,000 yen to the uk to my Lloyds account next year. Is this easy? Fees aside, is it fairly simple?

Also another quick question. My account has a 500,000 limit which i might hit. Is it possible to open a second bank account as someone on a working holiday visa?

Thank you

David

if you have "my number", you can do that at JP bank branch.
fee is 2500 yen at JP bank. plus foreign currency exchange fee, and unknown handling charge by your foreign bank and intermediating bank.

"My account has a 500,000 limit"
???
Is that a limit of money withdrawal at ATM ?
generally, account limit is more than 10,000,000 yen.

If you're sending that much money, expect to be interrogated. When I sent 200,000 yen back to my Australian account, they freaked out and started asking all sorts of questions about what the money was for. I explained it was for personal savings and to cover credit card expenses etc, and they wanted to see an itemised credit card statement that proved that I owed 200,000 yen to someone. They told me that 'personal savings' isn't a valid reason to send money home.

I broke down in tears because they were treating me like a criminal, until eventually a younger employee whispered to me 'Just say it's to pay off a student debt, it's a lot easier'. They ended up processing the transaction but made me feel SUPER uncomfortable about it. A friend later told me that they're strict about any amounts over 100,000 yen being sent overseas due to terrorism (?), so now I send smaller amounts to avoid being interrogated. I don't know why they care, as I've already paid tax on the money I've earned and am going to take it all with me anyway when I eventually leave the country, but they're clearly on edge about it and don't like people sending large amounts of money abroad.

If they give you problems, then maybe you should set up a GoRemit account, I don't have one but have heard they don't ask these sorts of questions.

Slightly off the topic, but similar to what Jenn Jett says above.

The other day I went to a bank in Tokyo where my non-Japanese spouse holds an account, to send money from his bank account in Japan to his account overseas (for family support) - I went on his behalf partly because he was too busy that day and the money needed to be transferred relatively quickly, but also because he once did it before and had such a bad experience that I offered to do it for him.

It is true, Jenn Jett, they ask you a whole bunch of questions to make sure there is a reason for sending money in the first place, and that the amount to be sent has a good purpose (that amount is really needed). The way they asked about it (probing into A LOT OF details) was very uncomfortable. In our case it needed to be transferred to pay off medical bills for a family member overseas, and also his account overseas incurred account management fee quarterly, and the end of a quarter was approaching. I had to give that much details, ugh.