Competition is increasing amongst Japanese brokers as the battle to attract retail traders continues. For US stock trading, the Japanese retail broker, Rakuten Securities, has removed its minimum trading fee. This was effective from 22 July 2019. This means that the broker will no longer charge a minimum fee.
When trading US stocks, the minimum used to be a $5 charge – the typical industry standard in Japan. Currently, there is competition between the Japanese brokerages on trading US stocks, mainly between the top brokers, Monex, Rakuten, and SBI.
Monex, Inc reduced its minimum fee from $5 to $0.10. This happened on the 4th of July, and Monex was the first broker to forgo its minimum fee. The firm cited that this change was in a bid to encourage its clients to trade US equities at much lower costs. Additionally, this move fits well within its mission to move beyond the traditional framework and innovate trading.
Rakuten Securities announced on 5 July that it would also drop its fee to $0.10. On 8 July, Monex followed suit, but then two days later, they announced a complete removal of the minimum fee for customers trading with US stocks. Rakuten has stated that it is striving to continually improve its services by expanding investment data on US stocks and increasing the validity period of limit orders. Their validity periods are the industry’s longest, allowing US stocks to be traded more comfortably.
Since Monex’s announcement at the start of this month, the top three brokers in Japan who offer US stock trading, all have a $0 minimum fee. Rakuten Securities charge a minimum transaction fee only for transactions with a contract price of anything less than $2.23. Monex, Rakuten, and SBI all have a capped maximum fee of $20 and a transaction fee, which amounts to 0.45% of the contract.
Rakuten Securities endlessly work to reduce stock commissions. Their mission appears to be one of striving to provide an environment where customers can trade, knowing that their charges will be minimal. They believe that they offer products and services that are tailored to the needs of customers. Recently they also stated that moving forward, they will continue to focus on individual investors by working to contribute to their asset formation. This is proven with its trading platform news last month.
In June 2019 Rakuten rolled out a new version of its MARKETSPEED platform. The platform is an updated solution that offers improved trading conditions. The software comes with no usage fees for users. Previously, the platform only offered free use to traders who complied with set requirements, like holding a set account balance and having a specified trading turnover. All these conditions are out of the window. Traders wanting to make use of these new conditions must upgrade to the latest version of the software and register for a MARKETSPEED account.