Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:

> Don't be fooled by Mizuho. I used to have an account with their San Jose
> branch, and could not do account transfers to people with Mizuho account
> in Japan, nor access my US account from a Japanese branch.

IIRC, Mizuho in California started out as something else that was bought
out and renamed -- Union Bank of California? (or was that the one that
was bought out by Sumitomo?).

None of the "Japanese bank" branches in the US are Japanese banks.  They
are incorporated separately, usually as subsidiaries of special-purpose
companies in Japan or the Caribbean to insulate the Japanese parent from
US accounting standards, tax inspections, and federal banking
regulators.  The predatory nature of the US financial regulators makes
moves like that quite necessary.  If you've ever had a Shittybank
account in Japan, you'll know just how quickly they will act to hand you
an IRS reporting form every time you move more than the yen equivalent
of US$9,800.

But it isn't just the US.  If you check the SWIFT and BIS home pages,
you'll see that non-Japan banks with the same names as Japanese banks
are all listed as separate corporations from the one in Japan in the
international banking registers.

-- 
CL