Coinhako review for Singapore

Coinhako is the brand a lot of Singaporeans already have installed, which is a better reason to review it carefully than to assume it is the right book. It is a local firm. It takes PayNow. It also makes it very easy to tap an instant-buy button that is not the cheapest way to spend S$1,000.

The licensee is SBI Coinhako Technology Pte. Ltd., formerly Hako Technology Pte. Ltd. — a Major Payment Institution (MPI) for Digital Payment Token (DPT) service under the Monetary Authority of Singapore. This piece describes the retail product as of 8 October 2026. It is not a recommendation to buy any token.

A local brand, a renamed entity

Coinhako started in Singapore in 2014, which is why parents, group chats and older how-tos still treat it as the default. In 2026 the company announced that Hako Technology Pte. Ltd. had been renamed SBI Coinhako Technology Pte. Ltd. after the SBI Group transaction. The MAS directory entry now uses the new name. Some OCBC and UOB PayNow payee caches still show “Hako Technology Pte Ltd”. Match the UEN on the screen in front of you, not a remembered string.

Licence number PS20200556 is the figure Coinhako publishes. Confirm the live directory row — Payments, MPI, Digital Payment Token Service — before you fund. The method is in how to choose a MAS-licensed crypto exchange. A rename is exactly the moment to re-check, because phishing apps love a transitional logo.

The firm also mentions an overseas affiliate (Alpha Hako Ltd. in the BVI) in corporate copy. Your retail SGD relationship should be with the Singapore MPI. If an onboarding screen or a token withdrawal points at a non-Singapore entity, stop and ask which company is the counterparty.

Coinhako is ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified on its own telling, and it publishes a Singapore help centre that is more specific about DBS, OCBC and UOB than most global apps. That local documentation is the product’s real advantage. It is not a reason to skip the fee comparison.

Instant buy versus the book

Coinhako presents two prices for the same token.

The instant or express path quotes you a single SGD number and a button. That quote embeds a spread. On a volatile morning the gap between that number and a mid-market reference can be wider than the 0.6% spot fee the help centre lists. If you only ever use the big button, you are not paying “0.6%”. You are paying whatever load was in the quote.

The book path is a spot trade from the Coinhako wallet at a stated 0.6%, or a limit order at 0.5%. Recurring buys — daily, weekly or monthly SGD purchases — are also 0.5% on the public table. Those percentages are the figures you should use when you compare Coinhako with Independent Reserve’s opening 0.5% or with Coinbase Advanced.

OTC at 0% is not a retail feature. It is a desk for sizes that are negotiated, not tapped. Ignore it unless you have already been pointed at the institutional site.

A practical habit: if the purchase is under S$200 and you value speed over basis points, the instant button’s load may be smaller than the time you would spend placing a limit. If the purchase is S$1,000 or a standing monthly buy, use the 0.5% path and fund the wallet first. Price both ways once; the difference will be in Singapore dollars, not in slogans.

PayNow, and the deposit code you must not skip

SGD deposits are free over PayNow. That sentence is true only if you follow the on-screen reference.

Open Wallet, Deposit, SGD, PayNow. You can save the QR — it encodes the UEN and your unique deposit code — or you can enter the UEN manually and type the deposit code into the bank’s reference field. DBS calls that field “UEN/Bill reference No.” OCBC wants it in the message. UOB wants it next to the UEN. The SGD deposit guide has the bank-by-bank version of this.

Coinhako’s own help centre is unusually blunt about failures. Transfer only from a bank account in the KYC name. Include the deposit code. Do not write “Bitcoin”, “crypto” or “Coinhako” in the details. Do not use GIRO, an ATM cash deposit or an over-the-counter transfer. Break those rules and the amount is refunded, typically within 30 minutes and sometimes up to 24 hours, minus a S$2 non-compliant-deposit fee.

A wrong deposit code that belongs to another customer can credit their account instead of yours. That is not a Coinhako-only horror story; it is the reason every MPI now prints a unique reference. Copy-paste. Do not retype.

Bank PayNow limits still apply. Without a token, DBS often caps a new payee at S$1,000 a day. Saved UENs with a digital token go much higher, up to the bank’s FAST ceiling. GrabPay is a separate, expensive rail (2.8%) with its own S$5,000 daily and S$30,000 yearly caps — useful only if you have no bank, which is rare for the readers of this site.

USD via SWIFT is available at a S$0 Coinhako fee, plus whatever your bank charges. It is the wrong rail for a local retail buy.

Withdrawals and custody

SGD withdrawals to your bank are listed at S$2. That sits in the same band as Independent Reserve’s S$1.50 FAST fee and Crypto.com’s S$1.99. It is not free. It is predictable. Non-compliant USD refunds, if you ever need one, are listed at US$50, which is a good reason not to experiment with SWIFT for fun.

Crypto withdrawals carry a network fee that Coinhako passes through. Crypto deposits are free on their side. Travel-rule fields apply above the usual MAS thresholds. If you are moving tokens to a hardware wallet, send a small test and wait for the required confirmations.

Customer assets at an MPI are safeguarded to a standard MAS can inspect. They are not deposit-insured. Coinhako’s terms will tell you, in lawyerly English, that a failure of the firm or of a wallet provider can still leave you short. Read that paragraph. Holding a large SGD balance in the app overnight is a choice, not a requirement; you can FAST out after a trade.

Support is in-app and by the published help centre. The Singapore-specific articles are better than the global average. Keep your own export of fills for IRAS. The app will not do your records for you.

Who it suits

Coinhako suits a reader who wants a Singapore-written PayNow flow, a brand their friends already recognise, and a recurring-buy instruction at 0.5%. It suits small, occasional purchases where the instant quote’s load is tolerable. It does not suit someone who is trying to minimise every basis point on a five-figure spot trade — Independent Reserve’s retail book is the cleaner comparison for that job — and it does not suit anyone who treats GrabPay or a credit-style card as a funding plan.

MAS guidelines discourage locally issued credit cards for retail DPT purchases. If a card option still appears, read whether it is a debit card and what the all-in cost is. 0.6% plus a card-scheme fee is not the PayNow price.

Against the rest of the MAS-licensed retail shortlist, Coinhako is the local default. Defaults are comfortable. Comfortable is not the same as cheapest. Use the book, paste the deposit code, and treat the S$2 withdrawal as the cost of a working FAST rail — then decide whether you still want the app on your home screen.