The LSE Directory / Retail brokers
Monex Group is a Tokyo-based, Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed financial services holding company (ticker 8698) built around online retail brokerage. Its principal operating businesses are Monex Securities in Japan, TradeStation in the United States, and Coincheck, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange. Through these units the group offers retail investors trading in Japanese and international equities, mutual funds, foreign exchange, options, futures, and cryptocurrencies, delivered mainly through direct online platforms rather than branch networks or advisor relationships. Within Japan's retail brokerage category, Monex differentiates by running a genuinely multi-market group rather than a single domestic brand. Monex Securities serves Japanese retail investors, Hong Kong based Monex Boom Securities serves Asia Pacific clients, and US based TradeStation serves active and algorithmic traders across stocks, options, futures, and crypto, a customer base and product set distinct from Monex's mainstream Japanese retail business. Since acquiring Coincheck in 2018, the group has also built a dedicated crypto asset exchange business, giving it exposure to digital asset trading alongside traditional brokerage at a scale uncommon among Japanese retail brokerages. Monex, Inc. was founded on April 5, 1999 by Oki Matsumoto, a former Goldman Sachs partner, in partnership with Sony Corporation. The company merged with Nikko Beans in 2004, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2005, and took the Monex Group name in 2008. In 2010 it acquired Hong Kong's Boom Securities and integrated ORIX Securities, making ORIX Corporation its largest shareholder. In 2011 Monex acquired US broker TradeStation Group for approximately 402 million dollars via a cash tender offer and short form merger completed that June. In April 2018 it acquired Coincheck, one of Japan's largest crypto exchanges. Monex Securities and its group companies together serve roughly 2 million brokerage accounts. Coincheck became a Nasdaq listed company under ticker CNCK in December 2024 through a business combination with Thunder Bridge Capital Partners IV, with Monex Group retaining a majority stake reported above 83 percent in SEC filings. In February 2026, Monex closed the sale of its roughly 97 percent stake in 3iQ Corp, a digital asset investment manager, to its own Coincheck Group subsidiary in exchange for newly issued Coincheck shares, folding an institutional digital asset management business into the Nasdaq listed crypto unit. Trade press coverage of the group's fiscal 2024 results reported net profit up nearly 850 percent year on year to 31.5 billion yen, with total assets nearly doubling to 1,504 billion yen, driven largely by TradeStation and Coincheck.
