KUALA LUMPUR (April 14): Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd has lowered its minimum brokerage fee to RM1 from RM7 for all of its market access from April 17, while still capping its maximum rate at RM100. 

In a statement on Friday (April 14), the digital equity broker said the new minimum rate will be applied to its Bursa Malaysia, New York Stock Exchange/Nasdaq, and Hong Kong Exchange markets.

For every trading value of less than RM700, Rakuten charges 1% or a minimum of RM1, followed by RM9 for trades worth between RM700 and under RM10,000.

Meanwhile, a fee of 0.1% applies to trades between RM10,000 and less than RM100,000, followed by a fee of RM100 for trades above RM100,000.

Rakuten has also revised its Rewards Ecosystem — a rewards programme structure that will give investors 1 RT point for every RM1 spent on brokerage fees to earn faster brokerage rebates.

“The new pricing structure aims to stimulate retail participation, and to further democratise digital equity broking in Malaysia,” said Rakuten Trade chief executive officer Kazumasa Mise.

“By making investing more affordable and providing opportunities to many more, digital investing will now be more accessible to investors keen to grow their wealth.”

He added that in the last 12 months, Rakuten had recorded 2,000 account openings per month, with unchanged trading strategies and relying on identical trigger points month-on-month.

“This tells us that retail investors are attracted to the convenience and accessibility of online trading platforms.

“To better support the needs of retail investors, we will be introducing fractional share trading for US stocks by the end of the month.”

As of March 31, Rakuten had activated more than 260,000 accounts and handled almost RM115 billion in total trading value since May 2017. Assets under administration for its clients were over RM3.7 billion.