Banks warned over misleading ads
The Fair Trade Commission on May 28 warned Citibank and Shinsei Bank over the use of advertisements for their foreign-currency time deposits that masked hefty fees and currency risks in fine print.
From November 2002 to March 2004, the Japan unit of U.S. lender Citibank promoted an Australian dollar time deposit, boasting that ¥10 million in a one-year term deposit would yield ¥352,400.
But the FTC pointed out that after subtracting currency exchange fees, the net gain would have been cut to about ¥120,000.
Shinsei similarly touted a New Zealand dollar time deposit from May 2003 to January 2004, saying a ¥10 million investment would yield ¥389,000 after a year, but the commission said fees would have slashed the net result to ¥100,000.
The Japan Times Weekly: June 5, 2004 (C) All rights reserved
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