What we check on every platform
Every exchange, broker, app and ATM operator on this site goes through the same set of checks. We start with the legal entity: which company you actually sign up with if you live in New Zealand, where it is incorporated, and whether it appears on the Financial Service Providers Register. Registration is not a licence — the FMA describes the register as a starting point, not an endorsement — but it does mean the provider must belong to a dispute resolution scheme, which matters if something goes wrong.
Next we follow the money. How does NZD get in (bank transfer, POLi, open-banking payment, card, Apple Pay, SWIFT, cash), what does each method cost, and how does NZD get back out? We read each platform’s own fee schedule rather than third-party summaries, and when two official pages disagree — it happens — we say so on the page.
Then we look at what you are buying into: the products on offer, whether you can withdraw coins to your own wallet, the custody arrangements, verification requirements, support channels and the company’s track record, including hacks, regulatory actions and FMA warnings about impostor websites.
How we label sources
We treat information differently depending on where it comes from. Official sources — legislation, regulators, IRD, the FSP register and a company’s own website — are stated as fact with a link. Figures from aggregators such as Coin ATM Radar or BTC Map, community sites, news reports and reviews are labelled as third-party in the text, because they can be out of date or wrong. When we couldn’t confirm something at all, we say that rather than guessing.
Why there are no star ratings
A single score hides the trade-offs that matter most to New Zealanders. A platform can be excellent for card purchases and awkward for NZD withdrawals; another can be cheap but offer no way to move coins to your own wallet. Instead of a number we describe who each platform suits, list its strengths and weaknesses, and show the facts side by side so you can weigh them yourself.
How our lists are ordered
Lists such as the platforms on our home page are ordered by how well each fits a typical New Zealand buyer: how easy it is to get NZD in, the platform’s track record and the licences or registrations held by its operating group, the breadth of products, and transparency about fees. Order is an editorial judgement, not a payment — nobody can buy a position on this site.
City and ATM data
For location pages we start from operators’ official locators (Localcoin publishes a usable New Zealand list; CoinFlip’s locator blocked our checks, so we use only examples we can see in search indexes). Merchant counts come from BTC Map, a community-maintained map based on OpenStreetMap, and are labelled as such. We don’t publish a location we can’t trace to a source, and if a city has no confirmed machine we say so and point to the nearest real alternative.
Keeping pages current
Fees, limits and rules change. We re-check the key facts on every page regularly and immediately when something material happens — a platform closing, a law passing, a regulator issuing a warning. Readers and companies can send corrections to contacts@crypto.kiwi.nz; we verify every correction against an official source before publishing it.
Sources & verification
Every source below was opened and checked on 15 October 2026. Where a figure comes from an aggregator, map or community source rather than the operator or a regulator, we say so in the text.
