Compliance comes
before the quote.

What an FSCA licence in South Africa covers, and what it does not

A crypto asset became a financial product in South Africa on 19 October 2022, when the FSCA published General Notice 1350 in Government Gazette 47334 under paragraph (h) of the definition of "financial product" in section 1(1) of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act 37 of 2002. From that date, anyone furnishing advice or rendering intermediary services in relation to a crypto asset must hold a Financial Services Provider licence, or be an appointed representative of someone who does.

What the licence covers. An intermediary service under FAIS is an act performed for or on behalf of a client with a view to buying, selling or otherwise dealing in a financial product. When we buy your Bitcoin for rand, or sell you USDT against a rand payment, that is the licensed activity, and it is the whole of what this desk does.

What the licence does not cover. This list matters as much as the one above.

• Deposit-taking. We are not a bank and hold no authorisation under the Banks Act 94 of 1990. Rand we receive is settlement money for a specific trade. It is not a deposit, it does not sit with us, and it earns nothing.
• Discretionary management. That is FAIS Category II. We do not hold it, have not applied for it, and act under no mandate of that kind.
• Custody as a standalone service. We do not operate a wallet, a vault, or a place for clients to leave balances.
• Payments. Joint Communication 1 of 2026, published on 28 May 2026, confirms that facilitating a customer's payment to a merchant in crypto assets — expressly including where property is being paid for — is an intermediary service under FAIS and requires a licence. It confirms in the same breath that a crypto asset is not money and not funds, so the transaction falls outside the National Payment System Act 78 of 1998. The practical consequence is that an FSCA FAIS licence does not extend to crypto assets used for payments. It authorises the intermediary service; it does not turn the transfer into a regulated payment. There is no recall, no chargeback and no settlement finality on the crypto leg, and no licence creates one.
• Legal and tax advice. Those belong to your attorney and to a registered tax practitioner.

And separately: a crypto asset is not legal tender in South Africa. No licence and no size of desk changes that.

FAIS Category I, and why we are not Category II

Category I is advice and/or intermediary services in respect of the products named on the licence. That is the category an OTC desk sits in, with crypto assets as the product named. Our own FSP number is published on this page as FSCA licence number — to be confirmed, so that the register rather than this page is what you rely on.

Of the two permitted activities we perform one. We render intermediary services. We do not furnish advice as defined in section 1(1) of the FAIS Act — a recommendation, guidance or proposal of a financial nature in respect of a financial product. Explaining how a settlement works, what it costs and what the law requires is factual information. Telling you whether to buy Bitcoin is advice, and we do not give it.

Category II is the discretionary FSP category: a mandate to make and execute decisions on a client's behalf. We carry out no Category II discretionary activity in any form. No managed accounts, no trading at our discretion, no performance-linked fees, no pooled client funds. Every trade is instructed by you and executed at a rate you accepted in writing before anything moved.

Fit and proper. Key individuals and representatives must meet the Determination of Fit and Proper Requirements, 2017 (Board Notice 194 of 2017): honesty and integrity, competence, qualifications, experience and continuing professional development. The register of representatives is maintained under section 13(3) of the FAIS Act and is visible to the FSCA.

Regulatory examinations. The exemption that temporarily relieved key individuals and representatives of crypto asset service providers from writing the regulatory examinations expired on 30 June 2025. There is nothing left to rely on: the examinations must be written.

FIC Act: we are an accountable institution

Since 19 December 2022, crypto asset service providers have been listed at Item 22 of Schedule 1 to the Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001. It is not a badge. It is a specific set of duties, each of which you will feel at some point in dealing with us.

• Registration with the FIC and goAML. An accountable institution must register with the Centre and report through the goAML system.
• A Risk Management and Compliance Programme (s 42). A written, board-approved document setting out how we rate client, country, product and channel risk, what we do at each risk level, and when a relationship ends. It is reviewed, not written once.
• Customer due diligence (s 21) and enhanced due diligence (s 21A). Identity, address, source of funds, and at higher risk, source of wealth. For companies and trusts, beneficial ownership traced through to natural persons.
• Ongoing due diligence (s 21C). Transactions are checked against what we know about you. A sharp change in pattern is a reason to ask, not a reason to execute quietly.
• Prominent persons. Foreign prominent public officials and domestic prominent influential persons (ss 21G–21H) require senior management approval and closer monitoring.
• Record keeping (ss 22–23): five years. Client documents and transaction records are kept for five years after the relationship ends or the transaction concludes.
• Reporting. Cash threshold reports under s 28 above R49,999.99. Suspicious and unusual transaction reports under s 29, which carry no threshold and must be filed within 15 days excluding weekends and public holidays. Reports under s 28A on property associated with terrorist activity and targeted financial sanctions.
• A responsible person and training (s 42A). A named person is accountable for compliance, and staff are trained.

One consequence deserves saying plainly: the FIC Act prohibits us from telling you that a report has been filed. If a check takes longer than you expected, we will not always be able to say why. That is a legal constraint, not a customer-service style. The full onboarding sequence is on the onboarding and KYC page, and the policy itself is in the AML and KYC document.

The Travel Rule: Directive 9 of 2024

FIC Directive 9 of 2024 gives effect to the FATF Travel Rule and has been in force since 30 April 2025. It has no minimum threshold. Originator and beneficiary information travels with a crypto asset transfer whatever its size.

In practice: when we send to another service provider, we must pass your details and the beneficiary's details to the receiving institution, and on an incoming transfer we must receive them. That is why a trader asks who owns the destination address, and why sending "to a friend who will pay me back" becomes a problem to solve before settlement rather than after it.

Below R5,000 a reduced information set applies and the ordering institution need not verify it. That is relief from verification, not anonymity. The information is still transmitted, still kept for five years and still available to an investigator. Anyone selling you an unverified transfer as a private one has either not read the directive or is counting on you not having read it.

Transfers to self-hosted wallets are not prohibited. We must establish that the wallet is yours and, at higher risk, take additional measures. Where a counterparty service provider does not meet the directive's requirements, or the information arrives incomplete, we have three options: ask for what is missing, hold the transfer, or decline. We use them in that order.

Sanctions, prominent persons and screening

Targeted financial sanctions. United Nations Security Council resolutions have direct effect in South Africa through the FIC Act, the Centre publishes the targeted financial sanctions list, and an accountable institution must apply it — freezing property and reporting under s 28A. We screen the client and connected parties at onboarding and again on an ongoing basis, not once at the start.

Prominent persons. Being a foreign prominent public official or a domestic prominent influential person is not a bar and is not an accusation. It means senior management approval, establishing source of wealth, and closer monitoring. Immediate family members and known close associates are treated the same way.

Blockchain analytics. Incoming addresses are screened for exposure to sanctioned addresses, known fraud schemes, darknet markets and mixing services. We do not accept funds with that history — not out of squeamishness, but because accepting them creates a reporting duty and a criminal risk.

We may decline a transaction or end a relationship. Sometimes we will not be able to explain why, for the reason set out in the previous section.

Tax, SARS and the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework

SARS treats crypto assets as assets of an intangible nature. Gains are taxed under ordinary principles, on either revenue or capital account depending on intention and the surrounding facts. That determination belongs to your tax practitioner, not to us and not to an exchange.

The supply of a crypto asset is a deemed financial service and exempt from VAT under section 2(1) of the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991. Separately charged service fees may still attract VAT, and where they do it will be shown on the invoice.

From 1 March 2026 South Africa has adopted the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. The first return is due to SARS by 31 May 2027. In practice this means client and transaction information held by reporting service providers reaches the revenue authority, and from there reaches other jurisdictions through exchange-of-information channels. Planning around SARS not finding out is no longer a plan.

We do not give tax advice. We do give you transaction documents that stand up in a return and in front of an auditor. The regime is explained in the crypto tax in South Africa guide.

Exchange control: the honest version

SARB Financial Surveillance will not approve a cross-border transfer for the purpose of purchasing crypto assets. Buying crypto in South Africa in order to externalise capital contravenes the Exchange Control Regulations and is a criminal offence. Value also cannot be repatriated into South Africa through a crypto asset under the allowances.

Allowances are used through your bank as an authorised dealer, not through us. The single discretionary allowance is R2,000,000 per calendar year, raised from R1,000,000 by Exchange Control Circular 6/2026 of 8 April 2026. The foreign capital allowance is R10,000,000 and requires a SARS Tax Compliance Status PIN.

On 3 August 2026 the South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury published a draft Crypto Assets Manual for cross-border activities, open for comment until 30 September 2026. It is a draft, not law, and we do not apply it as law. The dated history of these changes is on the regulatory updates page.

Advertising, disclosure and complaints

Section 14 of the FAIS General Code of Conduct governs how this site is written: factually correct, balanced between risk and benefit, no exaggerated urgency, plain language, a source and a date on any statistic, and testimonials only where genuine, attributed, and accompanied by a statement that the endorsement is not financial advice. That is why there are no countdown timers here, no "two slots left", and no testimonials at all.

Section III clause 17 of the ARB Code of Advertising Practice (23 January 2023) requires crypto advertising to state that investing in crypto assets may result in the loss of capital. That warning sits at the foot of every page on this site.

Section 42(2)(a) of ECTA excludes financial services from the seven-day cooling-off right in section 44. We do not promise a cooling-off period, because the law does not give you one here: an accepted firm quote is binding.

Section 51 of PAIA requires the manual on access to information to be published on the website; the small-business exemption ended on 31 December 2021. It sits in the legal centre alongside the privacy policy.

Complaints. The internal process comes first: a written complaint, an acknowledgement, and a response within a stated period. If the outcome does not satisfy you, the matter goes to the FAIS Ombud. The route and the time limits are on the complaints page.

What we will not do, in writing

This list binds us as much as anything else on the page.

• We do not take deposits, pay interest, or promise a return of any kind.
• We do not manage money at our discretion or issue trading signals.
• We do not transact without FICA onboarding, for anyone, at any size.
• We do not accept payment from a third party or pay a third party. The name on the bank account must be the client's name.
• We do not help anyone externalise capital from South Africa, and we do not bring value into the country through a crypto asset.
• We do not offer anonymity, "no KYC", or privacy from SARS.
• We do not give legal, tax or investment advice.
• We do not publish rate comparisons against a named competitor without a published methodology.

If someone offers you any of the above in our name, it is not us. Check the verify our official channels page.