Rakuten Securities Review

1. Is Rakuten safe or a scam?
2. Trading Platform
3. Accounts
4. Spread
5. Leverage
6. Deposits and Withdrawals conditions with a minimum deposit and withdrawal fee
7. Conclusion

What is Rakuten?

Rakuten trading name, which is a quite known broker is the division of Rakuten Inc. one of the leading internet services companies with business in e-commerce, travel, banking, securities, e-money, marketing and more.

Rakuten Group is expanding globally and currently performs operations throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania. The financial services Rakuten Securities launched in 1999 since the grown involved into the large brokerage firm with a comprehensive range of asset products including equities, commodities, bonds, investment trusts, ETFs and FX, CFDs. The company headquarters located in Tokyo, Japan while branching out into Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia.

Since then and until now, Rakuten is one of the major online brokers in Japan and across Asia servicing over 2.6 million clients. Also, the company continuously enhances its structure and include even more possibilities to offer and greater option for investors. Thus in 2016, the broker partnered with FXCM while further acquired FXCM Asia ltd.

Awards

Of course, as the company recognizes and diversify its service globally the broker provides advanced level customer service along with educational and growing strength and influence on the FX investment business. Rakuten now serves as a global broker, with great international recognition, numerous awards and achievements, as well as well recognized for its sponsorships and social programs it performs.

Is Rakuten safe or a scam?

For the regulation and licenses, Rakuten is heavily regulated by various authorities due to its branches and global offices. The head office located in Japan authorized by the local Financial Services Agency (FSA Japan) while also is a member of the Financial Futures Association and the Commodity Futures Association.

Hong Kong branch RSHK authorized and regulated by SFC, while Australian entity RSA, regulated by the respected ASIC. In addition, the Malaysian branch restricted by the Securities Commission Malaysia and holds Capital Markets Services License (CMSL).

The above mentioned range of regulations and authorizations ensures Broker’s reliability and that the operations handled according to the set regulatory requirements. This ensures the trusted investment solution, while clients are protected in multiple ways with money segregation rules,

Trading Platforms

The branched nature of the Rakuten delivers various platforms to their clients that may incur some differences between the entities as well. Thus, the Australia Rakuten offers as a trading platform the industry known MetaTrader4 Platform that besides its powerful performance allows analyzing the price with a slew of charts, technical tools and highly customizable interface and modular approach.

Desktop platform

Another platform solution is the Rakuten FX trading platform that delivers offering to the Hong Kong entities is an easy-to-use software with robust functionality, while its AS Streaming trading function performs speedy order execution with lower trading costs through the tight fixed spread and no extra cost. The investment defined at pre-set preferred trading lot size, auto copy notification, real-time account reports on desktop, web and mobile devices.

The Malaysian offering includes also access to the market platform via iSPEED.my app or web-based trading screen that provides with a more efficient way to manage trading activities from the online account.

Accounts

Rakuten Securities through its diverse branches establish vast opportunities to invest and covers the need of different traders and clients. So in order not to confuse your possibilities, check over the applicable entity the account type you can be handled with, since the conditions and offers may vary from the regulation to another.

Fees

Overall, Rakuten uses pricing technology directly from the Tokyo platform, since this option allows to leverage the larger orders and present better prices to the global markets. For the trading costs, the broker does not charge any commission on the spreads, while the spread in 95% is fixed during regular working hours and the rest 5% may vary due to the low liquidity reason.

The comparison on typical Rakuten spreads you may see below, as well check out and compare offered fees with another popular broker Plus500.

Leverage

Being an international broker that serves in various entities and respectively regulated by local authorities, various branches of Rakuten may offer different levels of leverage. While Japanese and Australian entities of Rakuten still offer a quite high leverage level, up to 1:500 on Forex, the other branches may maximum allows 1:100 on Forex major pairs.

Of course, leverage offers a great benefit opportunity, yet, make sure to learn deeply about leverage and how to use it smartly, as a leveraged or increased trading size may pay a significant role in your either potential income or loses as well.

Payment Methods

As a Rakuten client, you can choose and fund a trading account with different currencies, typically AUD, USD, EUR and GBP, while you still can select which base currency to utilize and even have multiple accounts. The payment options include domestic and international bank wire transfers, e-wallets option Neteller, Skrill, ChinaUnion Pay, Credit or Debit cards, Amex, along with Bitcoin via the e-wallets.

Deposit

The minimum deposits at Rakuten are set to a small as 50$, thus the trader of any size may involve into trading with Rakuten at ease. Nevertheless, consult with the broker in order to cover all necessary margins according to the trading instrument you working with.

There are no fees for deposits made by domestic transfers, however, banks may charge international transaction fees for other payment options.

WIthdrowal

The withdrawals are processed through the same methods while the withdrawal fee will vary from the method to another, e.g. Neteller and Skrill will add on a 2% fee.  Nevertheless, check funding methods with your Rakuten entity, as various regions may apply slightly different conditions on payments.

Conclusion

The Rakuten Review is about the broker that operates and provides professional services, while constantly improving their offering. The Japan-based head company diversified its portfolio to a wide offering through the range of branches that are also highly regulated, thus deliver secure trading environment.

The overall proposal to the investors and traders indeed very comprehensive by the number of account types, fixed or the floating spreads, trading platforms and availability of progressive tools. While all in all concludes Rakuten as a reliable and very attractive broker to trade with.

The only thing you should be attentive with is to check the relevant information due to his own country of residence and under which branch the client will be trading, as the conditions may be slightly different.

Nevertheless, we would be glad to know your personal opinion about Rakuten,  share your experience in the comment area below or ask us for some additional information if necessary.