Are you doing “digital end-of-life planning”? Some people may still be a long way off, but as the “basics of end-of-life planning” to think about starting today, how to end your life, how to prepare for assets, funerals, smartphones, etc., MBS announcer Makoto Yamanaka spoke with Hirai Hiroshi, an end-of-life planning advisor and director of the NPO Rashisa, about various information on end-of-life planning. We also had lawyer Atsushi Iseda, representative of the Japan Digital End-of-Life Planning Association, explain about digital end-of-life planning. It’s an important topic for young people as well.

The first step in preparing for the end of life is to close your bank account

The program received the following email from a woman in her 60s living in Osaka Prefecture.

“My aunt passed away the other day, and I started to think that maybe I should start thinking about my mother and my own end of life, something I had never wanted to think about until now.”

First, Hirai says that the first step in preparing for the end is to “close your bank accounts.” He recommends having only two accounts, one for living expenses and one for savings. According to a survey by MyVoice Communications, three out of four people over the age of 60 own three or more accounts.

▼ 0 pieces = 0.9%
▼ 1 piece = 7.9%
▼ 2 pieces = 16.4%
▼ 3 pieces = 23.1%
▼ 4 pieces = 17.3%
▼ 5 pieces = 14.4%
▼ 6 pieces = 8.1%
▼ 7 pieces = 4.8%
▼ 8 pieces = 2.5%
▼ 9 pieces = 1.3%
▼ 10 or more = 3.5%

So why should you have fewer accounts?

(Yamanaka) “If someone dies with many accounts, is it difficult for their family to close them?”
(Hirai) “It will be difficult. First of all, we need to confirm who the heirs are, so we need to gather family registers and other documents. No one can close an account unless they are an heir. There are other people in other positions, such as executors of wills. Essentially, a family member will be the heir, but the bank won’t know if that person is the real person. So we need to gather family registers and other documents that will show that.”
(Yamanaka) “You’ll also have to search for where the seal is.”
(Hirai) “Exactly. Also, the procedures are different depending on the account. Some can be done directly at the store, while others send the documents to a center and have them checked and sent back. It would be nice if the procedures were the same, but they’re not.”
(Announcer Yamanaka) “I still have my Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank cash card at home, but Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank doesn’t exist anymore, it was merged into Mizuho. I was initially told to go to the place that made it, which is in Tokyo. So I just left it as it was. Nowadays, you don’t have to go to that branch if it’s within the same group, but the procedure is difficult for the person themselves, so it must be even more difficult for their family.”

If you have an overseas bank account, the process becomes even more complicated.

(Hirai) “I’m currently working on a case involving a foreign country. Even if you submit Japanese documents, they have to be certified, or rather, translated into English, which costs money. To confirm your identity, you don’t need a registered seal, so you need a signature certificate. If the amount is large, you need a lawyer, and from what I’ve heard, it can cost between 500,000 and 1 million yen to withdraw money from an account.”

Also, there is a problem that the bank will not tell the family how much money is in the account even if they ask. Therefore, they have to spend money to deal with an account that they do not know how much money is in. As a result, it is possible that the amount they get out is only a few hundred yen.

Mayuko Toyoda, a former member of the House of Representatives and former bureaucrat at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, points out further problems, including:

(Toyota Mayuko) “If children knew all about their parents’ accounts, it would be a hassle, but they could go through the procedure. But if they don’t know where their parents are or what accounts they have in the first place, then there’s no way the account holders will contact them when they pass away, so there’s a risk that the accounts will remain dormant forever.”

This is the basic key to avoiding such problems when preparing for the end of life. Make a list of your accounts, etc. It is a good idea to make a list of the financial institution, branch, account number, person in charge, and type of account (whether it is a regular deposit or a fixed term deposit). Other information that should be listed in the same way includes insurance, real estate owned, and credit card information for borrowing.

There are pages in commercially available “end of life notes” where you can write this information. Of course, it is also helpful to write this information in your own notebook.