RetireJapan

This is my first post, and I want to thank all the members here for their helpful advice. I've learned a lot from reading through old posts. I've also purchased the retirejapan guides to ideco and the new nisa. And I read the Millionaire Teacher series recommended in the guides.

So I feel pretty prepared to get started. I was all ready to get ideco/nisa with Rakuten when I realized that au has its own online brokerage called kabucom. The majority owner is MUFJ and the minority owner is KDDI. MUFJ is my bank and au is my phone company, so I'm comfortable with them. I've always found au to have good customer service. I've never been a points collector, but as far as I can tell, the Ponta points system for au and kabucom is pretty good, 1% for paying with their credit card, etc. (I don't currently have an au pay credit card, but could presumably get one.)

Has anyone had experience with au kabucom? Or perhaps experience in the au Ponta system more generally?

I know that SBI, Rakuten, and Monex are the three biggest online brokerages in Japan. I suppose that's why we mostly just hear about them. If size is the only reason, I don't mind going with a smaller one like kabucom. The fact that it's owned by MUFJ makes it seem stable - perhaps it'll grow and become a top brokerage in the future. But are there any issues/concerns when going with a smaller online brokerage as opposed to one of the big three?

Do points, even a good points system, end up making all that much difference in the end? I've always ignored points, including my au points account, so I have no experience with this. I've gotten rewards cards from different shops beofre, but I tend to lose them, so I stopped bothering. I've tended to get different services from different companies regardless of their affiliation, rather than trying to get everything within one network. I use my Wise account card as my credit card, so it's essentially prepaid. I don't have a proper credit card and never buy anything on credit, so getting a credit card in Japan would be new for me too.

Thanks everyone.

Welcome!

I guess if au kabucom has the investments you want, at competitive prices, then they are going to be a reasonable option. I don't have experience with them myself (just have accounts with the big online brokers).

What makes them better than say Rakuten or SBI though?

Thanks for the reply. It's mostly just the points thing that caught my eye. Being a complete novice with points, I don't know whether it's worth even caring about that. If it's not, then I suppose I'd just go with Rakuten as it seems to be the default recommendation here. (The ideco guide recommeded SBI for ideco, but the guide is a bit older.) But it's also that I've had good experiences with au customer support in the past - no idea if that carries over to kabucom though.

Kabucom's ideco options are, I guess, slightly subpar. There's no global fund. You have to get their different tsumitate funds, a Japan one, a developed countries one, and an emerging markets one. Fees range from 0.2% to 0.3%. I suppose it would be simpler to get Rakuten and just get their All Country fund and then forget about it until retirement. For nisa, I guess there's some variation - Kabucom doesn't seem to have the newer Rakuten plus series funds in their list, but other than that it seems broadly the same as Rakuten's offerings.

I've had fairly negative experiences with points, in that they seem to be a bit of a bait and switch thing: advertise an attractive rate then change it later.

Wouldn't make decisions solely based on points. If you go through a major broker you can get world stock funds for around 0.05% annual fees.

Okay, I'll retain my traditional suspicion of points then.

I suppose another solid argument for sticking with Rakuten (or SBI/Monex) is that if I have difficulty with something at a smaller brokerage, no one here may have any knowledge of how that brokerage works.

I think I'll just go ahead and apply for Rakuten then. Thanks!

Points are all about companies manipulating your behaviour for their benefit.

Investing is all about manipulating your own behaviour for your own benefit.

The two aren't really compatible in the long term, IMO.

VanMark wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 5:31 am
Kabucom's ideco options are, I guess, slightly subpar. There's no global fund. You have to get their different tsumitate funds, a Japan one, a developed countries one, and an emerging markets one. Fees range from 0.2% to 0.3%. I suppose it would be simpler to get Rakuten and just get their All Country fund and then forget about it until retirement. For nisa, I guess there's some variation - Kabucom doesn't seem to have the newer Rakuten plus series funds in their list, but other than that it seems broadly the same as Rakuten's offerings.

Kabu.com has the eMaxis Slim series in NISA, but not iDeCo. Rakuten is the same. Costs seem to be the same.
With Rakuten I use the Tawara Developed Markets fund instead for iDeCo. No huge issue for me at 23,000yen per month. If I was able to put 68,000 into iDeCo, it would be a larger part of my regular investments and I might consider changing I suppose.

By the way, before becoming au kabu.com, they were just plain old kabu.com and were one of the pioneers of online internet-based trading in Japan. So should be no issue with using them. They are not a newcomer like Moomoo.

That's interesting. I didn't know they had been around so long.

I use au kabucom. It’s good for anyone who just wants to buy the SPDR S&P tracker ETF, since it’s classified as a Free ETF and you won’t have to pay any fees for each transaction. This classification work for a number of ETFs. Other than that, it’s no better and probably worse in terms of perks compared to other online brokerages like Rakuten, where the points system is more generous.