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How to open an account with Trade Republic. Step for a video identification.

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Hello, I’m Harii! I’ve lived in Germany for 3 years. I was born and raised in Japan, and I came to Europe in 2018 for my husband business.

Do you want to open a brokerage account and start investment in Germany? How difficult is the procedure?

I use ‘Trade Republic’ as a online broker. The registration took only 15 minutes and the procedure was very easy. My account was opened 6 hours after registration!

In this article, I explain you how to open an account with Trade Republic, with lots of screen shots.

Do you worry about video identification? No worries! You can find the flow of video identification, too.

You can find in this article..
  • How to open an account with Trade Republic
  • The video identification flow and my experience
  • How to set up a tax exemption

General information about investments in Germany

How to sign up with TRADE REPUBLIC

Firstly, here’s how to sign up for an account!

Information as of October 2022. Screens and flow may change.

(1) Access TRADE REPUBLIC’s official website. Click on “Join now” or “Open Free Account”.

traderepublic official website

(2) Enter your phone number and click the → button in the lower right corner.

Account Phone Number Registration

(3) You will receive an SMS code. Enter it.

Account Opening SMS Code Entry Screen

(4) Choose and enter PIN code for login

PIN code setting for securities account

Enter twice for confirmation.

This PIN code will be used later, so make sure you don’t forget it!

(5) You have now completed your account registration! Then click “Let’s Go” to open an account.

Step 1 of opening a Deutsche Securities account is complete.

How to open an account with TRADE REPUBLIC

Once you have signed up, next you should register to open an account.

(1) Enter your name

Account Name Entry

Please enter the same spelling as on your passport

(2) Enter your e-mail address

Registration of email address associated with the account

(3) Enter the address

Address registration linked to a securities account

Enter the street name and continue full address.

(4) Enter date of birth

Enter the date of birth of the nominee

(5) Enter place of birth

Registering place of birth is the most difficult part of opening a German account

I entered my place of birth as per my residence permit.

(6) Select your citizenship

Non-German can also open an account.

I am a Japanese citizen, so I selected ‘I have other citizenships’.

(7) Enter your citizenship

I selected Japanese nationality

Click on “Add citizenship” and select your citizenship.

(8) Select taxable country

Check in 'I'm taxed in Germany'

(9) Enter bank account IBAN for withdrawals

Enter the account number for withdrawals from your brokerage account.

In addition to withdrawals, they are also used to receive the key (PUK) needed to change phone numbers and PIN numbers.

Your reference account is your personal reference account which is used for all withdrawals from your Trade Republic cash account. You enter your reference account when registering with us. We’ll then transfer one cent to this account. The payment reference of this transfer will specify your personal unblocking key (PUK). You’ll need the PUK if you ever want to change your mobile phone number, reference account or PIN. You should therefore keep this secure.

Why do I have to specify a reference account? – TRADE REPUBLIC

(10) Confirm the items you have entered.

Reconfirm account opening details

(11) Now you’re all set! Now, all you need to do is only identification!

Completed up to Step 2 of account opening

You can continue on, but you will probably get an error during the video identification. I had an error in the video chat no matter how many times I tried. In order to avoid an error, download the app as per following procedure. I did my identification via the app and it worked!

(12) Open the verification email sent to your registered email address. Click ” Verify email” to authenticate.

Account Registration Email Authentication

(13) Click on ‘OPEN APP’

Verification of registered e-mail address completed

(14) Open the App and click ‘Log in’

trade republic app login

(15) Enter registered phone number

Enter the phone number you registered when you opened your account

(16) Enter registered PIN code

Account PIN code entry

(17) Click on “Pair device

trade republic device pairing

This is required when logging in the app for the first time.

(18) Log in again and click ‘Continue’

Go to Step 3 of Opening a Securities Account

Now you can finally start the video identification.

How to Video Identification with TRADE REPUBLIC

Currently, Identification is carried out either by video or photo. The method will be assigned to you automatically by Trade Republic, so there is no choice. You can see details at Official FAQ.

The flow and questions in a video identification may differ from person to person, but for your reference, here is what happened when I did video identification.

I waited about a minute before I was connected to an operator.

First of all, I was surprised when they suddenly spoke to me in German…. But when I asked him to speak in English, he immediately changed it to English.

Read the code on the screen.

111-xxxx

Do you agree that our conversation will now be recorded? If yes, please answer YES.

OK!

(Sigh) YES or NO

Oh, YES…

The video chat guy spoke very fast, clerical and unfriendly….

I was then asked for my name, address, date and place of birth, etc.. and answered as I had registered.

In the video identification, there was one difficult question to answer.

What is the name of the person with whom you have made a BUSINESS CONTRACT?

…? Could you repeat that?

What is the name of the person with whom you have made a BUSINESS CONTRACT?

What? Contract? I’m not sure what you mean.

(Sigh) What’s the name of the app you signed up for?

Ah…TRADE REPUBLIC?

OK, why do you want to establish a business contract with that?

(Why…?) Because I want to trade stocks…

Okay.

This question was so confusing….anyway I managed it fortunately…

After that, ID check continued. I waited a minute for data verification, and then enter the SMS code they send me at the end, and finally finished!

The operator was unfriendly from start to finish….

Final Steps to open an account

Once the video identification is done, the rest is easy!

(1) Click “Continue” on the screen that appears after the video chat.

The last step in opening a securities account

(2) Answer questions about your investment experience.

Questions related to investment experience

(3) If you have a referral code, enter it.

If there is a referral code for account opening, enter it.

(4) Check the terms and conditions and click “Open account now”.

investment-related materials

(5) Registration is completed!

Account opening registration completed

It said it would take less than 5 minutes for approval, but in my case it took about 6 hours. Once approved, you will receive the following email

Account Registration Approval

(6) Before you forget to apply for your Tax ID and Exemption order, you may should submit your Tax ID and Exemption Order.

Open the application and go to Account => Settings => Tax information.

German Investment Tax Exemption Registration

Tax ID is an 11-digit number written on the document sent to you after your resident registration.

Please refer to another article for details about the tax exemption amount (Steuerfreibetrag). ⇒Here

Open a brokerage account in Germany!

Opening a securities account in Germany could be easier than you might think.

I also have another brokerage account at comdirect. Compared to comdirect, opening an account with TRADE REPUBLIC is easy and very fast! It is nice that English is supported.

There is no charge for opening an account, so those who are interested in opening a securities account in Germany should try “TRADE REPUBLIC”!!

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