How to open a Rakuten Securities account

I made a YouTube video sharing how to create a Rakuten account. (Click to watch “How to create a Rakuten Securities account“)

There are 4 simple steps:

Step 1: Register to create an account

You can add me as a friend on LINE to receive a referral link for family and friends – you will get reward points after your first stock/mutual fund purchase (until their campaign expires).

Alternatively, you can go to https://www.rakuten-sec.co.jp and translate the page into English for easier reading, as there is a lot of specialized securities vocabulary.

Select open an account. You can open a standard trading account or a tax-free NISA (Nippon Individual Savings Account) trading account. If you have a Rakuten credit card, I highly recommend registering for NISA with Rakuten as well because you get many benefits in reward points when purchasing.

If you select that you are already a Rakuten member, the registration will be very fast and easy. You just need to enter your email.

Because you are already registered with Rakuten from before, they already have all your information so you don’t need to enter anything else. You can proceed directly to taking pictures of your identity documents.

Step 2: Verify your identity

Normally, verifying your identity only requires a My Number card, but as foreigners, we also need to prepare our Residence Card.

Just take pictures according to the instructions and then click the submit button.

Note that you must physically have your My Number card ready; pictures saved on your phone are not enough. This is because there is a step requiring you to take a photo of the card tilted to confirm its thickness – avoiding fraudulent behavior.

And you also need to take a picture of your face to verify that the person matches the card.

Then you can choose whether to let Rakuten automatically file your tax return or not, whether to create a NISA account or not, and whether to use a Rakuten credit card or not. Then you agree to Rakuten’s terms and conditions.

Rakuten will check if the information matches your documents and then send a letter to your address containing an ID and password to execute transactions.

Step 3: Receive notification letter

It may take a few weeks from the time you register until you receive the notification.

Keep an eye on your email to see if you have received a successful registration notification. Usually, 1-2 days after receiving the email notification, you will receive the physical letter.

The password they send will have two types. One is the password to log in to the account:

And the other type is a PIN number (4 digits) for trading, depositing, and withdrawing money.

After receiving the ID and these 2 passwords from the letter, please log in and change your password immediately.

Step 4: Initial settings

Just follow the step-by-step setup instructions. These include settings like how to receive dividends, whether to receive settlement money transferred to your account or reinvest it, and whether to register for other services like iDeCo (individual Defined Contribution pension).

If you already have a Rakuten credit card, they will have a lot of information readily available, and you just need to confirm it.

These choices can be edited later so they are not very important. You can choose as you like.

And that’s it. I wish you success in opening your account smoothly!