Breaking up with Financial Advisor

[MandF]

Hey all,
EU citizen, Permanent Resident here. Been living in Japan for more than 20 years and have no banking, investment or taxes in my home country.

I have been with financial advisors since 2008, I was young, innocent and was not allowed by my job to have a broker account / trade at the time.
I made the poor decision to accept a Zurich Vista 25 years plan and started looking into it only after changing company last year. I was very surprised to see it didn't perform well at all : a grand total of 5% over 11 years.

I complained to the (different) financial advisor who then tried to sell me a RL360, I checked the fees and that was high robbery.
I started to read this great forum and plan to max NISA for me, my wife and in-laws. I will also max IDECO.
All that as soon as I can get my hands on an official "Ny Number" card, I think I only got the postcard with the number on it. I saved the number and thrashed the paper.

So now, here I am. Planning to ditch the financial advisor scheme. The guy is nice but was not able to answer : "What is your added value ?"
I will move as much money as possible out of Vista without suffering the hefty penalties and I plan to get an ETF with a Japanese broker.

That is a decent chunk of change. Any advice ?

[RetireJapan]

Welcome! You've come to the right place

Sounds like a good plan. Max iDeCo, max NISA, put the rest in taxable account. Use low cost index funds (mutual funds are good now in Japan), choose sensible asset allocation, leave for the long term.

Please ask any questions on here.

[MandF]

Thanks Ben.
Any recommended broker ?
I saw you seemed to like Monex, SBI and Rakuten. In a nutshell what would be the difference between those ?

[StockBeard]

I will move as much money as possible out of Vista without suffering the hefty penalties

I am not familiar with Vista in particular, but my experience with an other insurance-investment scheme that I am not allowed to name was that you can't escape the penalties unless you die. I'm sure you did the math, but in my case it was better to terminate the account entirely (and they kept 85% of the value of the account for cancellation fees. And it was still the best move out of all my options).

In any case, good for you on your decision to move on

[RetireJapan]

Thanks Ben.
Any recommended broker ?
I saw you seemed to like Monex, SBI and Rakuten. In a nutshell what would be the difference between those ?

They are all pretty similar. SBI has a limited English-language interface (after you sign up), Rakuten lets you earn their points on some transactions, I like the Monex interface. I have all three but no clear favourite.

[goodandbadjapan]

I was in a similar position a few years ago with a plan and was pleasantly surprised by how much I could cash in without penalty as I had already had the plan more than ten years. I did that, but even leaving the minimum in would mean I still had to contribute going forward. It worked out better just to cash the lot in and so I cashed in the remainder a few months later. I suffered a small penalty but nowhere near as bad as the ones you hear of, simply because I was over ten years in (this was only a 15 year plan, though). Find out how much the penalty would be: if it isn't huge, I would cash he whole lot in, especially if not doing so would mean continuing to pay premiums for the remaining 14 years of the plan.

[adamu]

Apologies in advance for responding to probably the least significant point of your post.

All that as soon as I can get my hands on an official "Ny Number" card, I think I only got the postcard with the number on it. I saved the number and thrashed the paper.

I'm pretty sure that "postcard" (マイナンバー通知カード) was the official document you could have used. That's what I have and I just send a photo(copy) of it when signing up for taxable services. I thought they would re-issue it when I moved a while back, but they just wrote my new address on the back. There's also a photocard version (マイナンバーカード) you can order, which is useful as official government photo ID, but it's not necessary for most foreigners because we have the residence card (and maybe also a driving licence). It does allow you to submit your tax return online though. It should be possible to just get the city/ward office to re-issue the notification card.

From https://www.kojinbango-card.go.jp/en-faq/:

Is reissuance of the notification card acceptable?
If it is acceptable, where and how do I request for it?

Reissuance is possible.
However,an issuance fee will ,as a principle, be charged for reissuances resulting from causes such as loss of card.
Please take the necessary steps to apply for reissuance at the nearest municipality.

https://www.kojinbango-card.go.jp/en-tsuchicard/ also says you may need a receipt number from a police box...

[concerned]

" The guy is nice"

So was the chap I used, back in 2011/2012 he was trying to sell me the LM property fund based in Auz
I can remember him being very friendly on the phone, joking actually, the sort of guy would be fun to have a few beers with..

I was in the process of actually buying this LM fund he was selling me, but I needed the money at the last minute so pulled out.

A few years later I came across the following site which described how he knew this LM fund that he was selling had problems, but he continued to sell it anyway due to the high commissions he was receiving from it..

Eventually the LM fund failed and investors lost everything...

This financial advisor I worked with is the main character featured in the below article (FJ)
After this fund failed he left Tokyo (I guess his clients were looking for him.) He is currently based in SE Asia selling similiar such products...

https://www.andrew-drummond.com/2014/09 ... tch-up-of/

[MandF]

Apologies in advance for responding to probably the least significant point of your post.

Full of useful info so no need to apologize at all
Thank you very much.

[Max]

Proceed with extreme caution in dealing with financial advisors in Japan. They are a nest of vipers.