The deal closed on July 16, 2026. SBI executed the transaction through its wholly-owned subsidiary SBI Ventures Asset Pte. Ltd., acquiring both Hako Technology Pte. Ltd. (which holds Coinhako's MAS Major Payment Institution license) and Alpha Hako Ltd. (registered with the BVI Financial Services Commission) from Holdbuild Pte. Ltd., the parent company of Coinhako Group. The acquisition involved a combination of a capital injection and a share purchase from existing shareholders. Financial terms were not disclosed. Coinhako is now a consolidated subsidiary of SBI Holdings.

SBI first signaled its intent in February 2026 with a letter of intent. The five-month gap between announcement and close likely reflects the regulatory review timeline that any change in control of a MAS-licensed entity requires under Singapore's Payment Services Act (PSA).

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What Coinhako Brings to the Table

Founded in Singapore in 2014 by Yusho Liu and Gerry Eng, Coinhako was among the earliest MAS-regulated crypto platforms in the country. It received in-principle MAS approval in November 2021, becoming the first non-bank, locally incorporated crypto exchange to reach that milestone, and obtained a full Major Payment Institution license in May 2022 as the fourth firm in Singapore to do so.

Singapore now has 37 active MPI license holders for digital payment token services as of June 2026, a sign of how competitive the field has become.

The platform supports more than 40 cryptocurrencies and 100 trading pairs, with fiat on-ramps for Singapore dollars, US dollars, and Vietnamese dong. It serves retail and institutional users across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The company has described its user base as reaching hundreds of thousands across Southeast Asia, though it has not released a precise figure. Early investor Tim Draper, who also backed Coinbase and Skype, supported the company in its early stages, though his current stake following the acquisition has not been confirmed.

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SBI's Regional Buildout

The Coinhako deal is one piece of a larger and rapidly moving acquisition strategy. SBI's crypto exchange arm, SBI VC Trade, passed 2 million registered accounts on July 6, 2026, with roughly $4 billion in assets under custody. In June 2026, SBI announced a separate $289 million deal to acquire Japanese exchange Bitbank, which is still pending regulatory approval and expected to close in October 2026. If the Bitbank deal closes as planned, the combined SBI and Bitbank account base in Japan would approach nearly 3 million users, with combined assets under custody projected near $7.3 billion. Coinhako's hundreds of thousands of users across Southeast Asia represent a further, separate addition to SBI's regional reach beyond those figures.

SBI's digital asset revenues hit approximately 80 billion yen (roughly $530 million) in fiscal year 2024, up more than 40% year over year. The group also invested $50 million in Circle's IPO in June 2025 and backed EDX Markets in a $76 million institutional funding round in July 2026. Global crypto mergers and acquisitions have reached 144 deals worth $11.8 billion so far in 2026, according to data cited in CoinDesk's analysis of the Bitbank transaction.

SBI Holdings Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao described the strategic logic in a statement: "Integrating it with the digital space ecosystem SBI Group has built, this is a solid step toward realizing the SBI Group's strategy [...] expanding a global corridor for digital assets, including tokenized stocks and stablecoins."

Coinhako CEO Yusho Liu pointed to institutional demand as the primary growth driver: "With SBI Group's extensive network and resources, Coinhako will scale its institutional-grade infrastructure to meet the surging demand for tokenized assets and stablecoins."

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What It Means for Users in Southeast Asia and Beyond

For users across Coinhako's four markets, the immediate practical change is the addition of institutional backing from one of Japan's largest financial groups. That matters in part because Singapore is tightening its PSA compliance requirements in two phases: Phase 1 took effect in July 2026, introducing stricter capital and governance rules, with full operational compliance required by January 2027. Exchanges operating independently face rising compliance costs; Coinhako now has a well-capitalized parent to absorb that pressure.

There is also a remittance dimension worth watching. A significant share of Singapore's population consists of migrant workers from India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, and stablecoin-based remittance flows through corridors like Singapore are beginning to emerge. India alone accounts for an estimated 119 million crypto users globally, the largest national total anywhere.

SBI is already distributing Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin in Japan and launched JPYSC, Japan's first trust-type yen stablecoin, in June 2026. Whether those stablecoin products eventually reach Coinhako's wallet infrastructure and extend to South Asian payment corridors is not confirmed strategy, but the technical and commercial pieces are beginning to align.

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Looking Ahead

SBI has described its broader ambition as building a six-layer on-chain asset management platform spanning settlement, assets, markets, yield vaults, distribution, and investors.

Coinhako's MAS license and Southeast Asian user base give that platform a regulated foothold outside Japan. Developers integrating with Coinhako's APIs, or building on networks where Coinhako holds partner status such as the Kaia blockchain, should monitor product updates closely as the two organizations begin integration. The next visible milestone will be whether the Bitbank deal clears Japanese regulators on schedule in October, which would complete SBI's two-front expansion across Northeast and Southeast Asia in a single calendar year.