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Luno Review 2025: Deposit and Withdrawal Fees
Carla Moretti
- URL: https://www.luno.com/en/za
- Headquarter: London, UK
- Year Founded: 2012
- Platform App: Desktop/Mobile
- No. of Cryptos: 10
- Fiats Available: ZAR/EUR/IDR/MYR/PLN/ NGN/UGX/GBP/ZMW
- Withdraw Method: Bank Transfer/Crypto
- Payment Method: Credit and Debit Cards/Bank transfer/EFT/Instant EFT
Luno Review: Our Opinion
Luno South Africa is a cryptocurrency platform focused primarily on accommodating beginner-level investors from developing countries. The platform allows users to trade digital assets at highly competitive rates. Unique service offerings, such as crypto insights, brokerage services, the Luno App and Luno Wallet, and a live marketplace interface, make crypto investment easier for all traders.
However, the exchange is extremely restricted when it comes to the number of supported cryptocurrencies. Apart from Bitcoin, the platform supports only nine cryptocurrencies, which is much lower than most of its competitors such as VALR, Binance, and Crypto.com.An Overview of Luno
Luno exchange is one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Launched in 2012, it is a UK-based company now operating in up to 40 different countries with offices all around the globe, including London, Singapore, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Sydney, Lagos, and Stamford.
The company started by the name BitX. It was rebranded to Luno in 2016 when the company grew in popularity and began expansion to the European markets. As evident by the company’s slogan, “Cryptocurrency is for Everyone,” the crypto exchange is focused on making Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital asset trading accessible to everyone worldwide.
Luno is actively working to make cryptocurrency trading available to crypto enthusiasts living in developing countries, such as Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Malaysia. Currently, the crypto trading platform hosts more than 10 million active users who use the site to trade and invest in crypto assets. The exchange allows you to trade in dozens of crypto-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat pairs.
As far as the Luno exchange team goes, it includes engineers, financial experts, and market analyzers from several countries, cultures, and linguistic backgrounds. Many team members have successful careers working at giant global corporations like Google, Amazon, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Ernst & Young.
Luno South Africa is one of the top crypto platform in the country, enabling users to trade crypto coins at very competitive rates and fees. However, according to CoinMarketCap, this crypto trading platform is still considered one of the smaller exchanges by trading volume.
In this Luno review, we will cover different areas of the crypto exchange and the Luno App to help you decide whether this exchange is the right choice for you or not.
Pros
- Beginner Friendly
- Staking Rewards
Cons
- Limited chice of available cryptocurrencies
- Not available in Europe and USA
- lack of advanced trading tools
Key Features of Luno
The online world of crypto exchanges is crowded with several thousand trading platforms. To stand out from the competition, all top crypto exchanges offer a series of unique products and services to attract traders. And as you’d expect from such a reputed platform, Luno also facilitates its users with a range of features that set it apart from other crypto exchanges.
Crypto Insights
Crypto Insights is a page available for each tradable crypto pair on Luno. It is one of our favourite features on the exchange. It provides a comprehensive overview of the current market situation using several on-chain metrics.
On this page, you are able to see multiple signals (such as exchange summary, on-chain signals, and exchange signals) as well as additional information about the token (such as exchange inflows, exchange outflows, transaction demographic, and more). The feature is helpful for all types of traders, no matter their experience or skill level.
Instant Buy & Sell/Brokerage Service
To facilitate newcomers to the industry, who may not be familiar with different trading tools and order placements, Luno offers an instant buy-and-sell option. This method is extremely quick and straightforward, allowing users to swap one crypto (or even fiat) with another crypto within seconds. It involves no market analysis or filling out the order placement box, making it the best option for beginners to buy and sell crypto coins.
However, you must note that the additional ease comes at a greater expense. The fees to trade cryptocurrency with instant trades usually are much higher than the standard Luno trading fee. The exact cost depends on the crypto you are trading, your trading amount, and your country of residence.
Luno Business
The Luno trading platform also provides a dedicated business trading account for all non-individual investors. The account is designed specifically for miners, financial companies, crypto industry startups, trading firms, etc. Maximum trading limits for the business account are significantly higher. Moreover, the trading exchange also provides automated trading strategy services to Luno Business account holders using the API.
Luno Wallet
The Luno trading platform also provides its users with a Luno Wallet. The difference between storing crypto in the wallet and exchange is that the former allows you to store private cryptographic keys of the crypto you are holding – deep freeze storage. However, when your crypto coins are kept in an exchange account, you don’t possess their cryptographic keys. Moreover, this wallet gives you a unique wallet address needed to interact with the blockchain networks that Luno supports.
API for Developers
Institutional and corporate investors need much more trading capacity, financial information, and historic crypto market data to make better-informed investments in the digital currency market. Moreover, crypto startups and programming firms also require this functionality to interact and work with blockchain networks. Luno facilitates such users through API offering services for developers.
Luno Store
Anyone who has been in the crypto space for a few months will be familiar with the fact that this sector is much more than merely an investment market. Blockchain developers and companies are continuously creating and launching blockchain-based applications which can be used for several purposes.
Luno allows users to access and install these applications through the Luno Store. Its working is more or less the same as Google’s Play Store. All the applications featured on the Luno Store have been pre-screened and tested, so they are entirely safe for public use.
Luno Regulations
The Luno trading platform is a completely regulated and licensed financial service company registered under a number of regulatory bodies from different countries, further adhering to strict anti money laundering laws. At the time of writing this article, Luno is registered with the following organizations:
- Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) as a digital currency exchange provider
- The United Kingdom Financial Intelligence Unit as a reporting entity
- Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (BAPPEBTI) as crypto asset physical trader
- Securities Commission Malaysia as a recognized market operator
- Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit as a financial institution
- South African Financial Intelligence Centre
- Ugandan Financial Intelligence Authority as an accountable entity
- Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Department of the Treasury as a licensed money transmitter and money services business.
You can find more information about regulations and licenses from Luno’s official site.
Accepted Countries
The top crypto platforms are accessible in most regions of the world. Having a lot of countries or states on the restricted list results in most traders not being able to benefit from the services and products offered by the company. As mentioned earlier, the Luno crypto platform is primarily focused on making cryptocurrency trading convenient to the citizens of developing countries.
As of now, the exchange is functioning in almost 40 countries from three different continents, including:
- South Africa
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Nigeria
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- San Marino
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- Finland
- France
- Greece
- Guernsey
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Italy
- Jersey
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Monaco
- Austria
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
Cryptocurrencies Available on Luno
The number of cryptocurrencies an exchange supports is crucial to determining its functionality and relevance. All leading cryptocurrency trading platforms are expected to have a decent number of crypto coins in their arsenal. Otherwise, users are left with only a few investment options to diversify their portfolios. However, at the same time, all the supported cryptos must be safe investment options with minimum fluctuations.
Unfortunately, the available range of tradable cryptocurrencies at Luno will not be enough for most advanced traders. The only digital currencies supported by Luno are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), XRP (Ripple), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), Chainlink (LINK), Uniswap (UNI), and USD Coin (USDC). Though the available options are very limited, all of them are established crypto projects with solid fundamentals.
All these crypto coins can be traded against fiat currencies (such as the South African Rand) and other crypto coins. For example, you can buy and sell Bitcoin using ZAR and USD Coin both.
Fiat Currencies Available
If Luno South Africa puts you off by the limited number of supported cryptocurrencies, you might feel relieved knowing that the number of fiat currencies supported by the platform is among the highest in the industry. You can make payments using the following fiat options:
- Euro (EUR)
- South African Rand (ZAR)
- Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)
- Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)
- Polish Zloty (PLN)
- Nigerian Naira (NGN)
- Ugandan Shilling (UGX)
- British Pound (GBP)
- Zambian Kwacha (ZMW)
Users must also note that the list of the supported fiat currencies will vary from country to country. Moreover, different factors, like minimum deposit/withdrawal amounts and supported banking methods, will depend on the geographical region.
Luno Fees
Fees are another important area you must take into consideration. No one likes to lose a considerable portion of their investment amount to unnecessarily high fees and service charges. Furthermore, you have to be extra careful while analysing this department, as many exchanges have a number of undisclosed fees hidden under the main fee structure.
Luno South Africa is among the cheapest options to trade crypto funds. The fee structure can be divided into the following fees.
Withdrawal and Deposit Fees
Withdrawal and deposit fees at Luno depend on the amount and type of fiat currency you use. UK-based traders who deposit their cryptocurrency using bank transfers in GBP do not have to pay a deposit fee.
South Africa-based traders, however, will pay a deposit fee of 1%. The fees on this exchange are competitive with other leading cryptocurrency exchanges. Moreover, you are charged no additional fees while transferring your cryptocurrencies from another crypto wallet to the Luno account, making it the cheapest deposit method.
Trading Fees
Like many other cryptocurrency exchange platforms, Luno South Africa follows a maker/taker structure for trading fees. A maker fee is the trading charge imposed on traders that contribute to the liquidity of the crypto exchange. On the other hand, a taker fee is imposed on traders that reduce the exchange’s liquidity.
Luno South Africa charges 0% maker fees on all maker orders to incentivize makers. Regarding takers, the maximum taker fee stands at 0.10%. Though this fee model is already significantly cheap, you can further reduce taker fees by increasing your 30-day trade volume. Here, Luno offers, that if your monthly transaction volume exceeds ZAR 160,000,000, you can reduce your take fees as low as 0.03%.
Luno Payment Methods
As far as payment methods are concerned, Luno South Africa beats its competitors by miles. The exchange is compatible with a wide range of online banking services to ensure access to crypto trading for a large population. The supported payment methods to deposit funds include debit/credit cards, bank transfer, SEPA, Interbank Giro, iDeal, card deposit, Paystack, GT Bank transfer, Sofort, EFT, and Flutterwave.
However, the number of available options depends on your country or state. On top of that, not all methods are compatible with each fiat currency. For example, IBFT is accepted only for payments in Malaysian Ringgit. Similarly, Paystack is a supported payment option for deposits made using Nigerian Naira, but not the South African Rand. Similarly, to withdraw money, similar rules apply.
Luno Security
Security is one of the most critical factors when it comes to reviewing a cryptocurrency exchange. When we talk in the context of a cryptocurrency exchange, security does not only refer to the protection of users’ private data but their funds as well.
Unfortunately, there have been incidents in the past when hackers breached crypto exchange databases and ran off with users’ money. The infamous Mt Gox hack in 2014 – when hackers stole thousands of Bitcoins from users’ wallets – still haunts everyone in the crypto space.
Luno South Africa makes absolutely no compromises when it comes to account security and the protection of users’ data or the funds stored on the exchange. The platform uses a series of security layers to ensure maximum user privacy and funds’ security.
Most of the capital held by Luno South Africa is stored in cold wallets. These wallets are disconnected from the internet, leaving no room for hackers to breach them. On top of that, these cold storage drives are fully encrypted and protected by multi-signature private keys. Being multi-signature means that no single individual can access or transfer the stored funds on their own.
As far as the Luno hot wallet is concerned, it is protected by a third-party security company. Hot wallets are easier to maintain and allow users to quickly transfer or trade crypto funds while maintaining the necessary security measures. However, you must note that the security level for a hot wallet is not as high as for cold storage spaces. They are always connected to the internet, so they are prone to cyber-attacks.
Additionally, SSL-secured channels are used for transmitting all communications and web services. For users, safeguarding their Luno account is made possible by employing a password and implementing two-factor authentication.
Luno Staking Rewards
If you’re just starting out with crypto investment or if you’ve been doing it for some time, it’s crucial to grasp the concept of staking on a cryptocurrency exchange like Luno. Staking involves holding onto coins to generate additional earnings, making it a great option for generating passive income without requiring a large investment.
Our Luno review reveals that staking on the Luno exchange is extremely simple. To start, you must create a Luno savings account/wallet and transfer the crypto coins. After that, you can lock up coins to earn the reward. The reward is received in the form of a fixed interest rate. The Luno South Africa exchange offers three staking options:
- USDC staking with 7.6% interest
- BTC staking with 4% interest
- ETH staking with 4% interest
Though the 7.6% interest rate is higher than most competitors in the industry, we would love to see staking enabled on other cryptocurrencies (such as LINK and UNI) in the future.
Opening a Luno Account
Creating a new Luno account is completely free of cost. You can sign up, fund your account, and purchase cryptocurrency coins by following the given steps.
Step 1: Create a New Account
Visit Luno’s official webpage. Click on the Sign-Up button at the top right of the screen. It will take you to a new page. Here, enter your email address and create a strong password.
You can also sign up using your Google or Facebook account. Once done, you will receive a notification/email asking you to verify your email address.
Step 2: Identity Verification
Luno South Africa follows strict KYC measures and requires traders to verify their identity before using their accounts to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. For this purpose, you may be asked to submit government-issued identity documentation.
Step 3: Fund Your Account
Once done with identity verification, you can make deposits to your Luno crypto wallet. South Africa-based traders can use EFT and instant EFT payment methods to deposit fiat cash. The minimum deposit allowed is $10. You can also fund your account using cryptocurrencies through another crypto wallet.
Step 4: Purchase Crypto
As mentioned earlier, there are two ways to purchase crypto on Luno. You can either choose the instant buy/sell option to quickly turn your fiat currency into Bitcoin or any other available crypto, or place a more controlled order in the live marketplace at low fees. The former is a straightforward procedure, and you will be guided throughout the process. However, the latter gives you the freedom to choose the type of order (market, limit, or stop order).
Trading Experience on Luno
One of the main reasons for crypto traders in South Africa to use Luno is its clean and straightforward interface. The Luno exchange has developed quick procedures to create a new account, fund your account, and withdraw funds. Moreover, it has also integrated a smartly-designed compact UI.
When you log into your account, you land on the dashboard page, where you can access every page with a simple click. From here, you can move to trade screens, features, the wallet, blog, and help centre.
The exchange offers two different trading interfaces. The first one is the instant buy-and-sell interface where you can swap your coins with just a few clicks without having to go through all the technical aspects of placing orders.
The second interface provides a full-fledged advanced trading platform experience. Here, you can see live price charts, technical indicators, different tools, order boxes, etc. It is worth noting that the integrated live price charts are developed by TradingView, the best online charting platform used by traders worldwide.
The swap functions great on both android and iOS gadgets. When you switch from the computer site to the mobile app, you won’t notice any decrease in how well it works or how easy it is to use.
Final Thoughts
Luno South Africa is one of the best crypto exchanges for South African traders who are new to the cryptocurrency investment world. Luno’s brokerage service, crypto insights, clean interface, and low fees make the entire crypto trading experience relatively quick and easy to understand for beginners. However, the platform may not be well suited for advanced traders who desire to invest in many different cryptocurrencies to diversify their portfolios. This is also where most negative reviews about the platform stem from.
Our extensive analysis of the South African Crypto Exchanges doesn’t stop here. You can also read about our Gemini South Africa review as an alternative to Luno or you can check out our best crypto exchanges South Africa Guide to find out which one is our top pick available in your country.
See how Luno Compares with Other South African Crypto Exchanges:
FAQ
Most frequent questions and answers
Luno checks all necessary security requirement boxes for crypto exchanges. Luno stores the majority of the Bitcoin assets it handles in deep freeze storage (cold wallets). Both hot and cold wallets are protected using multiple-signature private keys and advanced encryption technology. Moreover, the company is registered by several regulatory organisations.
Although Luno has a generally lower transaction price, Coinbase has a better reputation and broader availability in Europe and America. However, Luno is a more suitable platform for individuals residing in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, or Indonesia.
Luno exchange has two offices in South Africa: one in Johannesburg and the other one operating in Cape Town. The Johannesburg office acts as the regional headquarter for the country.
Luno Proprietary Limited is fully regulated in South Africa. The company is registered with the Financial Intelligence Centre.
Almost all Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency tokens traded on Luno are kept in cold wallets, which store security keys offline along with the funds. Only a small fraction of the total funds handled by the company are stored on online wallets.
Yes. Ethereum (ETH) is currently one of the few cryptocurrencies supported by the Luno exchange. You can also use the Ethereum blockchain to send funds in or out of the exchange. Ethereum staking is available with a 4% interest rate.
We always try to provide the most accurate information available, and make sure our team follow through.
If you want to know more about our Crypto Exchanges Review Methodology follow the link below
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