Koho (fintech)

KOHO Financial Inc. (styled as KOHO) is a Canadian fintech company based in Toronto. While it is not a bank, the company provides banking services via KOHO Financial Inc. pursuant to a license by Mastercard International Incorporated.

History
KOHO was founded in 2014 in Vancouver. In 2015, the project was launched, offering its services through their mobile app in beta. The service's launch was announced for 2016 but was pushed back to 2017. The company partnered with Peoples Trust and Mastercard for its banking services with the company providing all of the APIs and User Interfaces. Funds deposited into a KOHO card are not insured by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, and will be returned to account holders by Peoples Trust in the event KOHO fails.

Later in 2017, KOHO moved its headquarters to Toronto, after again receiving investment from Portag3 Ventures.

In 2019, KOHO was able to secure $25 million in second-round funding after successful growth and accumulating 120,000 accounts in Canada. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, KOHO partnered with the CRA to allow their users to receive their emergency funds directly into their KOHO accounts.

On August 19, 2020, KOHO partnered with Manzil to launch the very first Halal Prepaid Mastercard program in Canada.

Awards and distinctions

 * Nasdaq FinTech Innovation Award (2015)