Bitget Adds New Zealand to a Growing License Count

Bitget is now listed on New Zealand’s Financial Service Providers Register, adding foreign exchange, custody and portfolio management to its regulatory paperwork. The Seychelles-registered exchange also joined the country’s Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman scheme for customer disputes. It is the newest name on a public list that New Zealand’s own regulators have spent years warning is not the same thing as a license.

Registration and licensing are different things under New Zealand law, and the gap between them has generated complaints and reform proposals for more than a decade. Bitget’s filing also lands inside a wider pattern: a fast-growing stack of registrations across smaller markets while its footing in bigger ones, including the United States and Canada, has thinned out.

What Bitget’s New Zealand Paperwork Actually Covers

The Financial Service Providers Register, known as the FSPR, is a public database run under New Zealand’s Financial Service Providers Act. Being listed lets a company offer specific categories of financial services inside the country, and Bitget’s entry covers a wide spread of them.

• Foreign currency exchange and domestic and cross border money transfers
• Client asset custody
• Portfolio and money management
• Execution of financial products and foreign exchange transactions on behalf of clients

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the filing fits into a longer compliance build rather than a one-off announcement. “Financial platforms need compliance structures that can support a wider mix of assets and services,” she said.

Getting listed is not expensive. Public guidance on FSP registration puts the base fee at roughly NZD 935 (about USD 560), plus an annual confirmation that runs near NZD 75. That is a modest outlay for a company that just told regulators it can custody client assets and execute foreign exchange trades on their behalf.

Does Registration Mean New Zealand Approved Bitget?

No. Registration confirms a company exists and has declared the services it offers. It does not mean the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), New Zealand’s securities and conduct regulator, has vetted the business itself before letting it onto the list, and government reviews have flagged that gap as a real risk for over a decade.

A 2008 law created the mandatory registration regime Bitget just joined. New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment later documented the exact problem this story turns on. Firms with little or no real connection to New Zealand have been registering on the FSPR to borrow its reputation, using the listing to imply licensing or active oversight they never held. Some of those firms were later tied to fraud overseas.

• Registration – a listing that confirms a company is on the public register and has declared what it offers; most categories carry no advance vetting of the business itself.
• License – a status such as an FMA financial institution license, which requires proof of systems, capital and conduct standards before approval, plus ongoing supervision after.

The FMA still runs an active warnings page naming entities that falsely claim New Zealand registration or licensing, work that is updated as new cases surface. Nothing in Bitget’s filing resembles those cases. But the same register that now lists Bitget also lists firms the FMA has publicly flagged as scams, and a name’s presence on it has never, by itself, told the two apart.

The Dispute Line New Zealand Customers Can Now Use

Alongside the FSPR listing, Bitget signed up to the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman (IFSO) Dispute Resolution Scheme. IFSO is one of New Zealand’s approved independent schemes for resolving complaints between customers and financial firms outside of court.

For a crypto exchange, that membership gives local customers a named channel for grievances instead of an offshore support ticket. It sits on top of general obligations that already apply to crypto businesses under New Zealand’s fair dealing rules, which the FMA applies to cryptoasset services that count as financial products, prohibiting misleading or deceptive conduct.

New Zealand has never built a standalone license just for crypto exchanges. Instead, digital asset firms are folded into the same general laws that cover every other financial service provider, which is exactly the framework Bitget just stepped into.

Where Else Bitget Has Filed Paperwork

New Zealand is one stop on a much longer list. Bitget, founded in 2018 and now counting Gracy Chen as CEO, has spent recent years collecting registrations and licenses across a spread of jurisdictions with very different levels of scrutiny attached.

A 2026 review of the exchange by Webopedia found Bitget has also lost its licensing in the United States and Canada, closing the platform to residents of both countries. Bitget is meanwhile applying for additional regulatory licenses in various jurisdictions, by its own account, and has appointed a chief executive to run a planned European Union headquarters in Vienna built around the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets rules. The stack is getting wider in smaller markets even as it thins in two of the largest ones.

The Volume Behind the Compliance Push

The New Zealand filing landed shortly after Bitget marked its own trading milestone. The exchange recently reported that its perpetual futures volume trailing Binance passed $70 billion, a scale that helps explain why the firm keeps adding registrations rather than treating any single market as optional.

Chen framed the New Zealand listing as part of that same buildout. “The registration adds another layer to our international financial services framework as the platform continues connecting digital assets with established markets,” she said in a statement.

Bigger volume brings bigger obligations. Custody, portfolio management and cross-border transfers, the exact categories New Zealand just approved, are the services regulators scrutinize hardest once trading size draws attention. A crypto exchange chasing tens of billions in derivatives flow has more reason than most to keep its paperwork current in every market it touches.

Feeding a Universal Exchange

Bitget frames all of this, the registrations, the dispute scheme, the Vienna hub, as scaffolding for something bigger: a Universal Exchange model meant to connect crypto, tokenized securities, commodities and foreign exchange products on one platform. Chen laid out that vision in a mid-year letter to users, describing a shift from a crypto exchange toward what she called a holistic universal provider.

• 52% of Bitget users now hold both stocks and crypto in the same account
• 35% hold gold or other precious metals alongside digital assets
• 51% use the platform’s AI-powered trading tools

Those numbers, drawn from the exchange’s own user data, are the case Chen makes for why the compliance buildout matters beyond any single country. She detailed the strategy further in her mid-year Universal Exchange strategy letter, and the company has already shipped product to match, including a tiered margin and CFD copy trading rollout aimed at blending retail trading styles into one workflow.

A tokenized asset, a foreign exchange trade and a stock position all need a legal basis to touch a customer’s money in a given country. That is what registrations like New Zealand’s are for, one jurisdiction at a time, whatever the register itself does or does not vet in advance. The New Zealand entry now needs a fresh confirmation every year to stay current, alongside whatever license Vienna eventually produces under MiCA.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is FSPR Registration the Same as an FMA License?

No. New Zealand’s Financial Service Providers Register mainly confirms a company is listed and has declared the services it offers, and most categories are not vetted in advance the way a full license is. Under the Financial Service Providers Act, the Registrar can refer an application to the FMA if the listing would give a misleading impression that a firm is based in, or regulated by, New Zealand.

What Happens if a Provider’s Registration Is Judged Misleading?

New Zealand law lets the Registrar block an application before approval if a listing would mislead the public about a firm’s home base or oversight. Government reviews have also documented cases where already-registered firms used their listing to imply licensing they never held, which is why the FMA keeps a running public warnings page rather than relying on registration alone.

Does New Zealand Have a Dedicated Crypto Exchange License?

No. New Zealand has not built a standalone licensing regime for crypto exchanges or virtual asset service providers. Instead, digital asset firms register under the general Financial Service Providers Act 2008 and must also meet the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 and the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013.

Which Regulator Handles Crypto Compliance Day to Day?

Since 1 July 2026, New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs became the sole anti-money laundering supervisor for all reporting entities, including crypto firms. The FMA’s conduct and fair-dealing rules apply separately, and only when a specific crypto asset counts as a regulated financial product.

How Many Users Does Bitget Serve Worldwide?

Bitget’s own reporting puts its user base at roughly 120 million people, up from about 50 million two years earlier, spread across dozens of countries. The New Zealand filing adds to that broader expansion as one more entry on a growing list of jurisdictions.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal or investment advice regarding cryptocurrency exchanges or regulated services; readers should consult a licensed professional before acting, and figures are accurate as of publication in July 2026.