Poh Heng describes itself as a long-established Singapore gold jewellery house whose roots go back to the post-war period of the 1940s.3

1948: The beginning

Poh Heng’s story begins in 1948, three years after the end of the Japanese Occupation and 17 years before Singapore’s independence.

The founder, Chng Tok Ngam, was trained as a traditional goldsmith. He established the business in Singapore at a time when jewellery making was predominantly a craft-based trade rather than the highly branded retail industry it is today.

The original business served local families, including customers who brought existing gold jewellery to be melted down, redesigned and turned into new pieces. This early relationship between gold, family wealth and important life events became an important part of Poh Heng’s identity.4

The name Poh Heng is associated with the Chinese characters 宝兴. The brand explains the characters as expressing the idea of “precious joy,” reflecting its positioning around preciousness and prosperity.5

1970s: Expansion beyond the traditional goldsmith shop

Under the next generation of the family, Poh Heng began expanding its retail footprint.

A major development came in 1971, when the company established a shopping-mall presence at People’s Park Complex. In 1978, it opened its first heartland outlet in Toa Payoh Central.

This expansion was strategically important because Singapore’s jewellery market was becoming increasingly accessible outside the traditional city-centre jewellery districts. Poh Heng’s move into heartland shopping areas helped it develop a broader customer base.6

1980s: Second-generation leadership

After founder Chng Tok Ngam died in 1984, leadership passed to his son Chng Seng Mok.

Seng Mok had joined Poh Heng in the 1970s and subsequently played a major role in expanding the company. Under his leadership, Poh Heng grew from a single-store operation into a substantial multi-outlet jewellery chain.7

This period represents an important transition from a traditional family goldsmith to a modern Singapore jewellery retailer, while retaining the family-business structure.

2000s: Modernisation of the brand

Poh Heng undertook a significant brand-image refresh around 2001.

The company moved away from a more traditional visual identity and introduced a cleaner logo alongside the tagline: “Nothing Is Quite As Precious As Trust.”

The repositioning attempted to combine the company’s traditional reputation for gold with a more contemporary retail identity.8

In 2005, Poh Heng was also recognised with the Heritage Brand Award, reinforcing its position as a longstanding Singaporean brand.

2010s: Heritage and contemporary jewellery

By the 2010s, Poh Heng had increasingly positioned itself not merely as a gold retailer but as a Singapore heritage jewellery house.

Its collections began incorporating local and regional cultural references, particularly Peranakan motifs, while also developing contemporary diamond and bridal collections.

The company remained family-controlled, with the third generation of the Chng family becoming involved in the business.9

2025: Enterprise 50 recognition

One of Poh Heng’s most significant recent milestones came in November 2025, when it was named the Top Winner of the 31st Enterprise 50 Awards.

The Enterprise 50 recognises Singapore’s leading privately held enterprises. Poh Heng’s award recognised its long-term development from a small goldsmith business into a major Singapore jewellery brand.17

One of Poh Heng’s defining characteristics is that it has remained a family-owned business across three generations.

The succession can broadly be represented as:

• Chng Tok Ngam (Founder)
• Chng Seng Mok / second generation
• Third-generation Chng family leadership

This continuity is important to Poh Heng’s branding because the company presents jewellery as something that itself can move between generations. The business story and the product story reinforce each other, linking the family business to family jewellery and family heirlooms.

Poh Heng states that the company remains family-operated and that the third generation continues the business established by Chng Tok Ngam in 1948.9

Poh Heng maintains a relatively broad jewellery portfolio. Its current collections include:

• Gold jewellery
• Diamond jewellery
• Engagement rings
• Wedding bands
• Bridal jewellery
• Si Dian Jin
• Si Dian Zuan
• Pearl jewellery
• Coloured gemstones
• Birthstone jewellery
• Bangles
• Bracelets
• Necklaces
• Earrings
• Pendants
• Charms
• Anklets
• Gold bars and medallions

The company works across 24K, 22K and 18K gold, allowing it to serve both traditional high-karat-gold customers and customers looking for contemporary gem-set jewellery.6

ORO22®

ORO22® is one of Poh Heng’s signature high-karat-gold lines. It focuses on 22K gold, appealing particularly to customers who appreciate the rich colour and traditional value associated with high-purity gold. This collection fits strongly into Poh Heng’s Singaporean and Southeast Asian gold-jewellery heritage.

Legacy®

Legacy® is arguably the collection that most clearly expresses Poh Heng’s identity as a Singapore heritage jewellery brand.

The collection draws heavily on Peranakan culture, incorporating motifs and visual references associated with Straits Chinese heritage. Poh Heng describes Legacy® as an attempt to translate historical Peranakan aesthetics into contemporary fine jewellery.8

Typical inspirations include flowers, phoenixes, fans, nature, traditional Peranakan ornamentation and Chinese auspicious symbolism.

This is strategically important for the brand because it differentiates Poh Heng from jewellery companies whose designs are primarily generic international luxury styles.

Trust® Diamonds

Poh Heng Trust® is the company’s major diamond proposition. The concept centres on the idea that purchasing a diamond is fundamentally about trust—trust in the stone, its quality, its provenance and the jeweller.

Poh Heng states that fewer than 5% of the world’s diamonds meet its criteria for becoming a Trust® Diamond. The collection is therefore positioned around diamond curation and quality rather than simply diamond size.

Cherish®

Cherish® focuses on wedding bands and wedding jewellery. It fits naturally into Poh Heng’s broader positioning around marriages, milestones and jewellery that is intended to become an heirloom.

Si Dian Jin

Si Dian Jin is particularly significant within Singapore’s Chinese wedding culture. The term refers to a traditional bridal jewellery gifting practice involving four pieces of gold jewellery. Poh Heng offers modern interpretations of this tradition.

It allows the company to occupy an important niche between traditional Chinese wedding culture, modern bridal fashion and gold as family wealth.

Si Dian Zuan

Si Dian Zuan provides a more gemstone- and diamond-oriented interpretation of the bridal jewellery tradition. Together, Si Dian Jin and Si Dian Zuan help make Poh Heng particularly relevant to Singaporean Chinese weddings.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Poh Heng’s modern brand identity is its relationship with Peranakan culture.

Peranakan jewellery developed in Southeast Asia through the interaction of Chinese, Malay and European influences. Traditional pieces are known for elaborate gold work, colourful gemstones, intricate motifs and coordinated jewellery sets.10

Poh Heng’s Legacy® collection takes this heritage and interprets it for contemporary consumers. This approach suggests that heritage jewellery should be something people can wear today, rather than something kept exclusively as a museum-like heirloom.11

Its recent Legacy® Fan Series, for example, combines the fan motif with Chinese, Japanese and Peranakan influences.1213

Gold is arguably the centre of Poh Heng’s identity. Unlike many international luxury jewellery houses whose strongest association is with diamonds, Poh Heng has historically been strongly associated with gold.

Its range spans three primary purities:

24K / 999 gold

Very high-purity gold traditionally associated with investment and traditional Asian gold jewellery.14

22K / 916 gold

A major category for Poh Heng and particularly important to traditional Singapore and Southeast Asian gold jewellery.

18K gold

More commonly used for contemporary fine jewellery and gemstone or diamond pieces because its greater hardness provides advantages for intricate settings.15

This creates a spectrum where 24K represents traditional wealth preservation, 22K serves traditional jewellery and cultural occasions, and 18K caters to contemporary fine jewellery featuring diamonds and gemstones.

Poh Heng places considerable emphasis on the idea that jewellery should retain the human touch of the goldsmith. The company states that craftsmanship—including crafting, polishing and assembly—remains central to its jewellery production.9

Its modern craftsmanship philosophy combines traditional jewellery-making skills with contemporary design and international sourcing. For example, Poh Heng collaborates with artisans internationally and uses ethically sourced gold and gemstones.

This gives the brand a hybrid identity that merges traditional Singapore goldsmithing heritage with contemporary international fine-jewellery production.

A particularly important feature of Poh Heng is its emphasis on Singapore Assay Office (SAO) hallmarking. The SAO hallmark is represented by the lion-head symbol.

Poh Heng states that its gold jewellery is hallmarked by the Singapore Assay Office to verify gold fineness according to Singapore’s standards. Its products made from gold or gold alloy comply with Singapore Standard SS581:2020, which specifies requirements for fineness and marking of precious-metal articles.

For consumers, this is significant because gold jewellery is not simply being sold on the basis of the brand name; the stated gold fineness is subject to an established Singapore quality-control system.

Poh Heng builds its brand around three core pillars:

Trust

The company wants customers to associate the brand with reliable gold quality, jewellery workmanship and long-term relationships.

Quality

The brand stresses gold purity, diamond selection, gemstone quality and craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship

Poh Heng’s heritage is rooted in traditional goldsmithing rather than simply retailing jewellery manufactured elsewhere.

The company’s own brand statement explicitly describes its philosophy as “Trust, Quality and Craftsmanship.”3 This explains why the word “trust” appears repeatedly throughout Poh Heng’s branding.

Poh Heng occupies a distinct position in the jewellery market. It is neither a global luxury maison like Cartier or Van Cleef & Arpels nor simply a mass-market gold retailer. Instead, it occupies a middle-to-upper segment built around Singapore heritage, family ownership, gold expertise, bridal jewellery and cultural identity.

If Cartier represents French luxury heritage, Tiffany & Co. represents American jewellery heritage, and Bulgari represents Italian luxury, then Poh Heng’s distinctive territory is specifically Singaporean: a combination of local heritage, Asian gold culture, family business, weddings, heirlooms and trust.

Poh Heng has built an extensive Singapore-wide retail network, including both shopping-mall and heartland locations.

Its current FAQ lists 19 boutiques in Singapore, although the number of outlets has changed over the company’s history as stores have opened, relocated or closed.16

Locations include areas such as:

• People’s Park Complex
• Toa Payoh
• Bedok
• Ang Mo Kio
• Parkway Parade
• Orchard
• Tampines
• Jurong
• Clementi
• Tiong Bahru
• Hougang
• Northpoint City
• JEM
• NEX
• Compass One
• Causeway Point

This broad geographical coverage is an important part of the brand’s Singapore identity. It is not positioned as a jewellery house accessible only in one luxury shopping district; it has historically maintained a strong heartland retail presence.19

Poh Heng’s history is intertwined with Singapore’s own economic and social development. The company was founded in post-war Singapore in 1948 and continued through the self-government era of the 1950s, independence in the 1960s, rapid economic development in the 1970s and 1980s, modern retail expansion in the 1990s and 2000s, heritage branding in the 2010s, and contemporary luxury and digital retail in the 2020s.

Consequently, Poh Heng can be viewed as more than simply a jewellery retailer. It is also an example of a Singaporean family enterprise that survived multiple generations of economic and social change. That heritage is central to its current brand narrative.18

Among the brand’s notable recognitions are:

• Heritage Brand Award (2005)
• Top Winner, Enterprise 50 Awards (2025)

The Enterprise 50 award is particularly significant because it recognises privately held Singapore companies that contribute to the country’s economic development.17

The 2025 recognition illustrates how Poh Heng views itself today: not only as an established jewellery shop, but as a long-running Singapore enterprise that has successfully evolved across generations.

As of 2026, Poh Heng remains a Singapore-based, family-owned jewellery house with a substantial domestic retail network and an increasingly sophisticated product portfolio.

Its contemporary identity combines four layers:

1. Traditional Singapore goldsmith: The 1948 origin remains the foundation.
2. Family business: The Chng family continues to operate the company across generations.
3. Heritage jewellery house: Collections such as Legacy® connect the brand with Singaporean and Peranakan cultural history.
4. Contemporary fine-jewellery retailer: Trust® diamonds, engagement rings, modern wedding bands, coloured gemstones and online retail allow the company to compete for today’s jewellery consumer.20

Ultimately, Poh Heng Jewellery is a Singapore-born, three-generation family jewellery house founded in 1948, best known for its high-karat gold expertise, Chinese bridal jewellery, Singapore and Peranakan heritage designs, diamond collections and a brand philosophy centred on trust, quality and craftsmanship.21

1. The Poh Heng Heritage: 77 Years of Singapore’s Gold Story | Poh Heng – Poh Heng Jewellery
2. Our Heritage – Poh Heng Jewellery
3. Our Brand Trust – Poh Heng Jewellery
4. e50 – Poh Heng Jewellery
5. Poh Heng Jewellery – Wiki.sg
6. Collections – Poh Heng Jewellery
7. Products – Poh Heng Jewellery
8. Poh Heng Legacy: Honouring Peranakan Culture through Exquisite Jewellery – Poh Heng Jewellery
9. Our Craftmanship – Poh Heng Jewellery
10. The History of Peranakan Jewellery in Singapore | Poh Heng – Poh Heng Jewellery
11. Peranakan Jewellery: A Singapore Heritage Guide | Poh Heng – Poh Heng Jewellery
12. Introducing the Poh Heng Legacy® Fan Series Collection – Poh Heng Jewellery
13. Legacy® Fan Series: Japanese Origami x Peranakan Heritage – Poh Heng Jewellery
14. 24K Gold Jewellery: Timeless Elegance for Any Occasion – Poh Heng Jewellery
15. Discover the Brilliance of 18K Gold Jewellery Pieces – Poh Heng Jewellery
16. Frequently Asked Questions – Poh Heng Jewellery
17. ENTERPRISE 50 – Poh Heng Jewellery
18. Best Gold Jewellery Singapore Store | Online Jewellery Singapore Store – Poh Heng Jewellery
19. Boutique Locations – Poh Heng Jewellery
20. 77-year-old Poh Heng gets a modern makeover. – Poh Heng Jewellery
21. Legacy – Page 3 – Poh Heng Jewellery