Trading 212 account creation and funding

[Moneymatters]

OK. I'm no shrill for this platform and the below is the extent of my knowledge.
But as there are limited options out there so I thought I'd share.
I want to preface this by saying this information likely only applies to European or British nationals permanently residing in Japan.

Whilst Trading 212 gets some poor press, they have billions invested with them.
The platform does still experience some intermittent short term (minutes/hours) stability issues so if you are thinking about making lots of intra-day trades this may not be the platform for you at this time.

With that said. If you are a European/Brit with currency sitting back home it might be an option for investing in some ETFs that aren't currently available in Japan whilst avoiding some transaction costs related to bringing money back to Japan before investing.
Of course, if you think having GBP or Euro will be useful in the future then you could even gradually invest converting Yen just as with any other "international" broker.

Tax Reporting:
If you realise capital gains you'd be responsible for reporting them to the Japan authorities yourself.
Trading212 is gathering your Japan Tax ID so should assume they are able to share information with Japan.

Account Creation:
During the comically simple account creation process you'll need to prove your address in Japan.
For a Japan resident, it appears the only acceptable evidence is a recent Bank statement sent to your address in Japan that shows some recent activity. (I scanned the six pages of my latest Prestia account statement and that was accepted.).

As a Japan resident, you can only select a USD or EURO denominated account. No multi-currency accounts and no holding multiple accounts.

Depositing funds:
If you have a a UK GBP account this is actually quite simple.
From your UK GBP account, select Internationl Payment. Although the Payee will likely be the Trading 212 Euro Bank account in London.
Select the payment currency to match your Trading 212 account and accept the exchange rate. Specify the IBAN information that matches your Trading212 EURO or USD account and hit pay.. These deposits will go through without any fees.
(Not sure on the process if you have a European Euro denomiated account but suspect it's just as simple.)

Credit / Debit card deposits over a certain amount will incur fees.

Note:
At no time during the process was I requested to convert my name into idiograms then slaughter those idiograms into bastardised versions of the accepted readings, dispensing with entire names and deleted characters elsewhere to the point a pedigree dog would have a closer association to the name they were forced to use.

[Viralriver]

Thanks, this is really useful. Been thinking of opening something in the UK for a bit now, as dealing with Rakuten's version of the Japanese language is sometimes a pain

[MajesticSoup]

Thanks for your post!

I feel bad for being negative and it's totally not my intention to dump rain on the thread, but I think it needs to be heard as a word of caution.

Trading 212 and TD Ameritrade are currently looked at under a really negative light in the past few days. This is because they restricted users from buying certain securities (to protect the user from risk, as they put it). While I am all for protecting users, knowing that they control your account to that extent is a pretty big turn off for me. Sure, you can argue that every broker has these security features, but this is a case where it was done because they were likely asked to do it by hedge funds.

With that said, I'm sure it's fine, if not great for normal investing!

[Viralriver]

I completely agree with you - what I saw last night was incredible, and not in a good way. As much as I shit on Rakuten for their shoddy interface, it was nice knowing that they wouldn't limit orders on GME yesterday (or at least, thinking they wouldn't since I doubt we're a big market player in general). But it did make me think it would be nice to invest in English, through a UK broker, and would be nice to use my GBP as I do trade between the two currencies here and there. But completely agreed they should be approached with caution - and I hope there is some investigation not only into WSB but into the brokers that limited the traders as well during market open hours.

[AnkiDude]

hmm this looks interesting since I was thinking about investing some of my EU capital (outside of Japan) into EU markets, this might help me do that without having to remit the funds into Japan first.

However, I'm a bit unsure about the reliability of this service for longer-term/larger-capital investing. Especially this part:

https://www.trading212.com/en/Safety-and-Security

In this case, investors will be able to claim under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which can pay up to £85 000 to each investor.

I'm far from an expert as I've just started investing myself, but is this amount of of liability normal? It seems too little to me?

[fools_gold]

I'm far from an expert as I've just started investing myself, but is this amount of of liability normal? It seems too little to me?

The 85,000UKP compensation limit is set by the FSCS. It's per person per firm so you can increase it by opening an another account at a different broker or by having your spouse open an account at the same broker.

[kuma]

Thanks for sharing the information. I'll look into this in due course. I note that at the moment there is a waitlist for opening an account due to 'unprecedented demand'.