Toronto-based FinTech firm Koho Financial wants to lower the entry barrier for trading digital assets with the launch of its new crypto offering.
Thanks to a new partnership with regulated crypto exchange Ndax, Koho users can now buy, hold, sell, and manage cryptocurrency in the money management app. Ndax will power the trading infrastructure and be the custodian of the cryptocurrency in the back-end, allowing Koho users to purchase more than 20 cryptocurrencies—including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana—with their Koho balance.
CEO Daniel Eberhard says access has been one of the biggest barriers for average Canadians wanting to dive into crypto.
“We’re focused on the major coins but we’ll periodically re-evaluate,” Koho CEO Daniel Eberhard told BetaKit in an email statement. “We’re trying to be careful to make sure we avoid pump-and-dump scammy coins.”
Eberhard added that, when supporting cryptocurrencies on its platform, Koho considers a coin’s time on market, its trading volume, adoption, and technical utility.
“We are not formulaic but we are mindful,” Eberhard said.
Koho Crypto doesn’t require money transfers to a separate account, and users can also deposit Bitcoin into Koho from external wallets. Eberhard said more coins will get this feature in the coming weeks as the platform adds more coins, staking, and two-way transfers.
Eberhard said in a statement that access has been one of the biggest barriers for the average Canadian wanting to dive into crypto, and that the company is seeing growing demand from people who “want more flexible ways to build wealth.”
“By bringing crypto into an environment Canadians already trust, we’re making that access more practical and aligned with how people actually manage their money,” Eberhard said.
RELATED: Koho refreshes joint accounts with new reward features
Koho will charge a 0.5-percent fee per trade for Koho members on its Everything plan, one percent for Extra and Essential plan members, and 1.5 percent for non-members.
The offering also includes price alerts, recurring purchases, and in-app education tools.
Founded in 2014, Koho’s financial services app is used by over 2.5 million Canadians. The company has widened its features over the years to include a prepaid Mastercard, a line of credit offering,and international money transfers, as well as credit history building and tenant insurance for renters. This past October, Koho launched a refresh of its joint accounts feature with a reward system to target younger Canadians. The company said that, by bringing crypto into this core ecosystem, it’s positioning digital assets as part of a broader financial toolkit.
In 2024, Koho raised $190 million CAD in equity and debt to bolster its efforts in securing a Schedule 1 banking licence. Koho was also one of the handful of Canadian FinTech firms that joined Payments Canada, the organization that operates Canada’s payment and settlement infrastructure, this past January. As a member, Koho is in line to reap the benefits of Canada’s incoming real-time rail payments infrastructure system.
Feature image courtesy Koho.