How to choose a MAS-licensed crypto exchange

Choosing a crypto platform in Singapore is a records problem before it is a fees problem. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) publishes the firms that may provide Digital Payment Token (DPT) service. Your job is to read that list, ignore the brand on the app icon, and only then compare PayNow rails and maker-taker rates.

This guide is the method the desk uses before a review goes up. It is not a recommendation to open any particular account, and a licence is not insurance. If you want names rather than the method, the comparison of MAS-licensed retail exchanges is the companion piece.

Look up the firm, not the brand

Crypto apps are almost always a brand wrapped around a Singapore private limited company. Coinbase the icon is Coinbase Singapore Pte. Ltd. in the directory. Crypto.com the icon is Foris DAX Asia Pte. Ltd. Coinhako the icon is SBI Coinhako Technology Pte. Ltd., which the directory carried for years as Hako Technology Pte. Ltd. OKX the icon is OKX SG Pte. Ltd. Independent Reserve the icon is Independent Reserve SG Pte. Ltd. Gemini the icon is Gemini Digital Payments Singapore, Pte. Ltd.

Write down the legal name from the platform’s Singapore terms, footer or licence badge. Then search that string, not “best Bitcoin app”, on the MAS Financial Institutions Directory. If the terms page will not give you a UEN and a company name, that is already an answer.

A group can have more than one Singapore entity. Crypto.com’s card is issued by Foris Asia Pte. Ltd., which holds a different set of payment-service activities. OKX’s derivatives screens, where they still appear, are described as products of OKX Financial Pte. Ltd., which the firm itself says is not licensed by MAS for DPT service. Matching the wrong cousin is how people talk themselves into an unregulated book.

How to use the Financial Institutions Directory

Open the directory. Use the institution search, or filter Sector to Payments, Category to Major Payment Institution (and, separately, Standard Payment Institution), and Activity to Digital Payment Token Service. Work through the pages. Print or save the result on the day you check; licence status is a snapshot, not a permanent badge.

You want four fields to agree with the app in your hand:

1. Organisation name, including “Pte. Ltd.” and any comma in “Gemini Digital Payments Singapore, Pte. Ltd.”
2. Licence type — Major Payment Institution or Standard Payment Institution, not “exempt” and not a blank row.
3. Activity — Digital Payment Token Service. Extra activities such as cross-border money transfer are useful context, not a substitute.
4. A Singapore registered address. A licensee must have a local place of business. A WeWork-style line is still an address; a missing address is not.

If the search returns nothing, try the former name. Coinhako’s rename from Hako Technology is the current example: older PDFs and some bank PayNow payee lists still show the old string. The directory entry should now show the new name. If neither name appears, do not send SGD.

The directory is not a product catalogue. MAS does not label a firm “retail exchange” or “institutional custodian”. Anchorage, BitGo, Cumberland and GSR are DPT MPIs. They are not where you PayNow S$200 to buy ether. After the directory confirms the entity, you still have to read the Singapore website to see whether a retail book exists. The exchanges hub is this publication’s map of the retail ones we have reviewed.

MPI versus SPI

Under the Payment Services Act 2019, a firm that stays below the statutory thresholds can hold a Standard Payment Institution (SPI) licence. In outline those thresholds are S$3 million of monthly transactions for any one payment service (other than e-money issuance and money-changing), S$6 million if it provides two or more such services, and S$5 million of daily outstanding e-money. Above the thresholds, the firm needs a Major Payment Institution (MPI) licence.

MPIs are not morally better. They are larger, so MAS requires more of them — including arrangements to protect customer money if the institution fails. SPIs are not unlicensed. They are licensed at a smaller scale. For a retail exchange that takes PayNow from the public, you should expect an MPI. If a consumer app claims to be “MAS registered” but the directory shows an SPI with no DPT activity, keep looking.

In-principle approval is not a licence. Luno held IPA and still left Singapore in 2023. Treat IPA as a queue position.

The Investor Alert List

The Investor Alert List (IAL) is the other official page you should open on the same afternoon. MAS uses it to warn the public about entities that may be wrongly perceived as regulated — above all, firms that solicit Singapore customers for financial or payment business without the right licence.

Binance is the crypto example readers still search. MAS has said Binance solicited Singapore users, offered SGD pairs and local payment methods, and was required to stop. The IAL entry is the standing warning. Absence from the list is not a clean bill of health: MAS cannot name every foreign firm a Singaporean might reach in a browser.

Use the IAL as a negative screen. If the name is on it, do not onboard. If it is not, you still need a positive directory hit. A Telegram handle, a spoof MAS letterhead and a cloned app are the usual next step after someone ignores that sequence. The legal backdrop is in whether crypto is legal in Singapore.

The risk-awareness assessment

MAS consumer-protection guidelines expect a DPT service provider to give retail customers information on the risks of the service, then to test whether an individual customer actually understood them, before providing the service. Platforms call this the risk-awareness quiz, the risk assessment or the customer-knowledge test. The label varies. The expectation does not.

The assessment should cover, at least: that DPT prices can move sharply and can go to zero; that you may not be able to sell in a thin book or during an outage; that tokens can be lost to theft, sabotage or a lost key; that leaving assets with the platform is itself a risk; that the firm may have conflicts when it is both the book and a principal; and that dealing with an unregulated overseas person is a weaker form of recourse.

Independent Reserve tells customers they must pass before the first deposit, trade or withdrawal, that attempts are unlimited, and that they only need to pass once. Other licensees run a similar gate. If you fail, the firm should not take your SGD until you pass a reassessment. Passing is not a suitability sign-off. You can still lose the lot.

Singpass, names and the first PayNow

Almost every retail MPI now starts KYC with Singpass Myinfo. You approve a data request. The firm receives your legal name, identity number and registered address from a government source. Residents without Singpass go on a manual passport path and should budget extra days.

The name that comes back from Singpass is the name the platform will match to your bank. Depositing SGD from a joint account, a parent’s POSB, a corporate UEN or a Wise balance in someone else’s name is the most common reason a transfer is reversed, often minus a S$2 refund fee.

Do the boring sequence in order. Directory. IAL. Singpass. Quiz. Small PayNow. Confirm the credit. Then a trade. Then a small FAST withdrawal to the same bank. If any step fails, stop and fix that step. Do not “try another app” in parallel with S$10,000 in flight.

What a licence does not do

A DPT MPI licence means MAS has authorised that company to provide that payment service, and that the firm is subject to conduct, safeguarding, travel-rule and audit expectations. It does not mean:

• your tokens or SGD are covered by the Singapore Deposit Insurance Scheme;
• you can recover 100% if the licensee or a sub-custodian fails — the statutory risk warning every licensee must show you says the opposite;
• MAS supervises the firm’s unregulated products, including DPT derivatives offered by an affiliate;
• every token on a global marketing site is available to you;
• credit, leverage or a locally issued credit card is allowed for retail DPT purchases — the guidelines say they should not be;
• yesterday’s fee table is still correct.

After the licence check, compare the product you will actually use. A simple instant-buy on Coinhako or Coinbase is a different price from a limit order on Independent Reserve or OKX SG. Custody wording differs. FAST withdrawal fees, as of October 2026, run from advertised free on some books to about S$1.50 at Independent Reserve, S$1.99 at Crypto.com, S$2 at Coinhako and S$3 at Gemini.

If you cannot explain, in one sentence, which legal entity holds your SGD and which rail will bring it home, you are not finished choosing. The directory is still open in the other tab.