In just one year! Should we “switch” to a brokerage firm that has advantages?

New NISA has been in operation for less than a year, and now it’s getting worse!

From 2011 to 2012, companies were competing with each other to get points for “credit card savings” as the “centerpiece” for acquiring new NISA accounts. However, within less than a year after the start of the new NISA, a number of changes were made to the system.　Many people may feel that they have been cheated ……. So, I will once again explain the rules and precautions for switching brokerage firms.

The deterioration of credit card savings is “malicious.” ……

As FRIDAY Digital has reported many times, ’24 saw a series of credit card service changes. Among them, the reduction of the point redemption rate for credit card savings is considered to be one of the “malicious” ones.

In March 2012, Sumitomo Mitsui Card announced a major revision of the point redemption rate for purchases made in November. Points are no longer awarded unless the cardholder spends more than ¥100,000 per year (for credit cards with no annual fee; same below). For au Pay cards, the redemption rate was reduced from 1% to 0.5% for purchases made in December.

Credit card savings is a service that allows customers to use credit cards to pay for their mutual fund savings. The points are redeemed in proportion to the amount of funds accumulated, and can be used not only for the NISA’s “Advance Investment Limit” but also for the “Growth Investment Limit”. Since a considerable amount of points can be earned by accumulating several tens of thousands of yen, a survey showed that “more than half of those who use the “reserve investment limit” use the credit card savings account.

In the case of online securities, the lineup of mutual funds that can be purchased through NISA is almost the same. Therefore, the point reward rate for credit card savings became a major selling point to encourage account holders to open accounts, and from the latter half of 2011, before the introduction of the new NISA, online securities companies competed with each other to promote the high rate. However, as mentioned above, within less than a year after the introduction of the new NISA, the rate was revised in a number of cases.

The “point redemption” service resulted in a loss!

I thought the service would not last long because it was in the red to begin with, but I didn’t expect some places to make changes so quickly.

Mr. Kenji Matsuoka, a money writer and an expert on credit cards, does not hide his surprise.

He said, “After making a big appeal for the importance of long-term investment with NISA, they are so quick to revise the service. I understand the importance of short-term profitability, but it could lead to a loss of trust from customers, which is the most important thing.

It is true that profitability is a tough business. The profit earned by securities companies from mutual funds is called “agency commissions,” and is basically one-third of the “investment management fees” of the mutual funds.

For example, the management fee for “eMAXIS Slim U.S. Equity (S&P 500),” the best-selling mutual fund in Japan and also very popular in NISA, is 0.09372% per annum (including tax). Since the fee is divided equally among the three companies (in some cases, the distributor is more than one-third), the agency fee is 0.03124%, which is only about 1/35th of the 1% rate.

Therefore, a 1% point rebate is expected to take 4-5 years to pay off for the brokerage firm, taking account of account management costs and other factors. There may be cases where the credit card companies bear a portion of the points awarded, but the basic structure will remain the same because the operation and management costs are negligible to begin with, he said.

We don’t know what will happen to the brokerage firms that are currently offering point rewards, but it is better to use them while they are still available,” Matsuoka stresses.

Matsuoka emphasizes. This is because saving money is a constant monthly expense.

Therefore, we have compiled a list of current major online brokerage firms’ point redemption rates for credit card savings. Some brokerage firms give points based on the balance of mutual fund holdings, which are added as “points held. All of the reduction rates are based on no annual fee credit cards, and for ease of comparison, the reserve amount is limited to 50,000 yen per month. The rate of return of points for holding points varies depending on the mutual fund brand, so “eMAXIS Slim U.S. Equity (S&P500)” was used as the target.

This table shows that Monex is still holding 1%. Moreover, the points held are as high as 0.03%. SBI Securitiesalso has high points and reimburses most of the agency fees.

Dormant account holders can “switch brokerage firms!

Now, for those who are considering changing brokerage firms, let us confirm the rules for transferring NISA accounts.

There is a fixed period of time when you can change your NISA account. From October 1 of the year prior to the year in which the change is desired until September 30 of the year in which the change is desired. Therefore, at this point in time, it is possible to change the account for this year, but there is an important condition. However, there is an important condition: “You must not have used the investment limit of your NISA account. If you have already used your NISA account to accumulate investment trusts or invest in stocks in January, you will not be able to change your account this year.

If they do so, their current account will become unusable, and they will not be able to invest in NISA for the rest of this year (they will resume investing in a new account next year). Therefore, those who have already used their investment limit will have to wait until October of this year to complete the procedures for next year.

On the other hand, even if you already have a NISA account, you can change your account if you have not yet made purchases this year. In fact, there are quite a few such people.

According to the “Survey on NISA Account Usage” published annually by the Financial Services Agency, there were approximately 21.25 million NISA accounts as of the end of December 2011, when the old NISA was in operation, and of these, approximately 9.9 million were so-called “dormant accounts” that had never been purchased during 2011. Of these, about 9.07 million were so-called “dormant accounts” that had never been purchased during 2011. This is about 43% of the total, and even with the new NISA, there should still be a significant number of dormant accounts. Those who currently have dormant accounts can trade in their new accounts by going through the transfer procedure.

NISA is not “one account per person”!

The new NISA is now in its second year, and there are some new points that need to be kept in mind.

The NISA account has been referred to as “one account per person,” but to be precise, there is only one account in which one can invest, and one can have a separate NISA account in which one does not invest.

What does this mean? For example, suppose you already have a NISA account and you open a NISA account at another financial institution while you have not made any purchases in that account yet this year. If you open a NISA account at a different financial institution, you cannot make purchases in the NISA account at the original financial institution, but you can maintain the account there.

In order to change financial institutions, you will receive a Notice of Discontinuance of Tax-Exempt Account or a Notice of Account Discontinuance from the original financial institution. If you submit a notice of account discontinuance, your NISA account will be discontinued, and you will have to sell the investment trusts and stocks you hold there or transfer them to a taxable account. However, since the account discontinuance notice stops transactions in the original NISA account, mutual funds and stocks can be left as tax-exempt. As a result, you will have two NISA accounts, one opened at the original financial institution and one at a new financial institution.”

If I open an account at a new financial institution every year, will my NISA account grow to three or four?

Yes,” he said. “Although tax-exempt assets cannot be transferred between NISA accounts, we believe that by making it easier to open an account, we are making the system more flexible and improving convenience for our users. In the future, it will be even easier to transfer. Rakuten Securities has already made the process much easier.

If you discontinue your NISA account and sell the financial products held in it or transfer them to a taxable account, the “lifetime investment limit” for that amount will be restored. You can submit a notification of discontinuation of tax-exempt account and sell the tax-exempt assets at any time. In addition, the “Annual Investment Limit” and “Lifetime Investment Limit” remain the same even if you have multiple NISA accounts.

The effect of savings will be maintained as long as you do not change your investment targets, and as October approaches, there will be a campaign to open an account. Those who can take the time and effort to open an account should choose a brokerage firm that offers better deals.