Earning SPU +1x with Rakuten Securities Point Investing: I Tried Meeting the Conditions

Good morning. It’s まさきん.

A while back, I wrote a post comparing Rakuten Points “grow your points” services. In it, I only briefly mentioned that point investing “also counts toward SPU.” This time, I’m pulling that part out and digging into it properly.

Understanding the conditions in your head is quite different from actually keeping up the purchases every month. Today I’ll write about it with that hands-on experience mixed in.

Checking the conditions for SPU +1x

According to the Rakuten Securities official website, point investing can add up to +1x to your SPU. If you invest a monthly total of 30,000 yen or more in investment trusts using points, you get +0.5x. US stocks (paid in yen) work the same way: a monthly total of 30,000 yen or more gets you +0.5x. Meet both, and you get +1x in total.

As a prerequisite, you need to set up the Rakuten Points course and Money Bridge. These two often are not done yet when you first open your account, so the first step is checking your settings screen.

What does Money Bridge actually do?

Money Bridge is a system that links your Rakuten Bank and Rakuten Securities accounts. Once linked, you can use automatic deposits and withdrawals (sweep) to and from your brokerage account.

At first, I didn’t really get why I needed to connect my bank and brokerage. It was only when I looked at the SPU conditions that I realized it’s a prerequisite for point investing. It’s a boring setting, but it’s not a step you can skip.

What I learned by doing it: earning caps and expiration rules

Meet the conditions and you get +1x. Up to this point, it’s fairly simple. But after actually receiving points for a few months, I found there are two things to watch out for.

First, the earning cap. The cap is 2,000 points per month for the investment trust portion and 2,000 points per month for the US stock portion, so even combined, the maximum is 4,000 points per month. If you think of it as a reward on your 30,000 yen purchase, it might be hard at first to get a feel for how you hit the ceiling.

The other is when the points expire. They were awarded around the 15th of the following month, and they expired at the end of the month after the month they were awarded. In other words, you only have a little over a month to use them after receiving them. If you leave them thinking “I’ll use them eventually,” they might disappear without you noticing.

How to think about the 30,000 yen amount

30,000 yen a month in investment trusts plus 30,000 yen a month in US stocks comes to 60,000 yen a month. You need to set this aside separately from your New NISA installment allowance.

I handled it by shifting part of the New NISA allowance I was already investing in toward products that meet the conditions. I didn’t force myself to come up with a new 60,000 yen. That said, switching products can involve exchange rate and fee impacts, so I don’t think it’s worth chasing the conditions to the point of seriously disrupting your current investment plan.

Combining with Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Card

As I also wrote in How to maximize points with Rakuten Mobile × Rakuten Card × Rakuten Securities, SPU works best when you think about boosting it through combinations, rather than looking at each service on its own.

Your Rakuten Mobile contract also has a way of changing your SPU multiplier, so if you check the conditions for your phone bill along with your brokerage, it’s easier to get a sense of your overall reward rate.

Think of it as separate from your New NISA allowance

One thing that gave me pause here was how point investing relates to New NISA. My understanding is that point investing is basically handled in a taxable account and is separate from the tax-free New NISA allowance.

So point investing does not mean you’ve “used” your New NISA allowance. I keep the two separate in my mind: I steadily continue my New NISA installments as usual, and I treat point investing as something to try within the range of my points. In terms of priority, I feel filling your New NISA allowance, with its tax-free benefits, should come first.

Things to be careful about

Both point investing and US stock purchases are products whose prices fluctuate. Don’t get too casual just because “it’s only points.” It’s worth keeping in mind that your investment can go up or down.

SPU multipliers, conditions, and earning caps may be revised in the future. When you actually try this, be sure to check the latest conditions on the Rakuten Securities official website. The investment-related content here is an introduction to how the system generally works and is not investment advice. Please invest at your own risk.

Summary

To get SPU +1x with Rakuten Securities point investing, the conditions were setting up Money Bridge and then investing 30,000 yen or more per month in points in each of investment trusts and US stocks. It’s also worth keeping in mind the combined earning cap of 4,000 points per month, and that points expire at the end of the month after they’re awarded.

The conditions themselves are simple, but after actually keeping it up every month, I felt the real things to watch out for are in the details, like the caps and expiration. If you’re interested in growing your points, start by checking whether your course setting and Money Bridge are set up in your own account.

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