How to exchange and or load other currencies onto Rakuten Securities

[Chris]

Hi All,

Quite new to Japan (just under 3 years here) and thus my Japanese is not brilliant but navigating the Rakuten Securities platform quite well...with help from my trusted friend Google translate

The additional problem is I am quite new to S&S trading (this is the first time in my life I have had a suitable emergency pot saved) so essentially I am running before I can walk as my first stint of S&S trading is in another language to my native language and not only that a language I have not yet acquisition.

Anyway. I have question. I got my NISA opened and been buying a mixture of Japanese and US stocks. However, I noticed that when you select the US stocks to buy in USD they are substantially cheaper than the quoted JPY option.

So I guess my question is...Can I load USD onto my account? If so how do load USD onto my account? Do I have to load JPY and exchange it using their exchange rates?...if so how? OR can I load USD directly onto it using my US transferwise border less account (I am not American so don't have an actual US account)?

Thanks in advance for any help regarding this

[RetireJapan]

You can buy USD in your account, then use the USD to buy US stocks/ETFs, etc. If you get USD dividends they build up in your account and you can either use them as dollars or convert to yen to cash out.

You have to go to this section of the site initially: 外貨建MMF注文（買い注文）

Once you have some dollars (or whatever) they show up on your 保有商品一覧 page, which I find the easiest way to then buy more or sell, etc.

Hope that makes some sense

[Chris]

Awesome! Cheers mate, many thanks for the fast reply too!

I shall give those instructions a try

[markshinshu]

There seems to be a conversion charge around 5.5% on top of the rate whichever way you get from Yen to USD:

You can buy US stocks and choose to pay in yen (which will convert at current rate plus around 5 or 6%)
Or convert beforehand using the 外国為替取引 in the 外国株式 menu then buy in US dollars.
Or (Ben's suggestion above) get one of the MMF in 外貨建MMF in the その他商品 menu.

Rakuten does not show the actual rate you're getting: just the mid-rate. If you look at the dollar and yen values, the actual rate is 5 or 6% worse than the stated rate.

But they all seem to take 5.5% for the currency exchange. Any way of getting the dollars for less?
(If they're taking that much off the currency exchange, presumably both ways, then a 10% gain in share value is going to end up a 1% loss).

I wondered if registering for FX would help, but not sure if you can export USD into the Rakuten account? (Seems it just lets you transfer JPY).

Any ideas?

[adamu]

But they all seem to take 5.5% for the currency exchange. Any way of getting the dollars for less?

I think this is just a temporary buffer to account for fluctuations in the exchange rate. The actual rate is used when the transaction goes through.

There is a fee of 0.25 yen per dollar, though.

This comes up every now and then, so I added a sentence to this Currency conversion article.

[Kanto]

EDIT: It seems there is no cheap way to fund a Japanese IBKR account so this advice may be moot.

I use Interactive Brokers (IBKR) Canada to exchanged CAD for USD.

They simply have the best rates possible with incredibly low-commissions and instant fills.

If you can do your own tax return they may be well worth a look. (IBKR Japan that is).

[markshinshu]

Thank you @Adamu!

That now makes sense.
Looking back at older transactions, the exchange rates and currencies work out right. The extra margin is there when you put in the transaction, and perhaps until the deal goes through?

I can now stop kicking myself!!

Thanks for recommending IBKR @Kanto. How do you get USD from there into Rakuten?

In theory I guess converting to USD beforehand could get a better rate, but my experience with planning currency transfer is I only get it right about half the time, so statistically speaking there's nothing to lose by leaving it to chance.