Nostro Account

We’ve got a yen for some yen, so we head down to our local bank branch and ask them to open up a nostro account for us in Japan. A “nostro account” is basically an account our bank has at a bank in a foreign country, and in that country’s currency. “Nostro” means “ours” in Latin, and “nostro account” sorta kinda translates to “our account in your institution.”

Now this is fun: on the Japanese side of things, they’d refer to our same account as a “vostro account,” i.e. “your account that is in our institution.” Same account, different side of the situation. Also fun is the fact that most major banks have nostro accounts in a whole bunch of countries, as long as those countries’ currencies are convertible.