The full process
Enquiry to written confirmation, with a worked example and a timing table.
Settlement
Same-day settlement,
Same-day settlement,
honestly described.
Settlement is the part clients feel. This page explains the three rand payment rails the desk uses, what each one can and cannot do, how many network confirmations the crypto leg needs, and what the written confirmation contains.
Which rail, and where
Which rail carries a settlement depends on the corridor — the currency, the country and the bank at the receiving end. The corridor is confirmed before a quote is given, never assumed. The rails described below are the South African ones, because that is the market this desk has an office in and the one it settles in most often.
Three conditions
What same-day settlement depends on.
Same-day settlement is not a promise the desk can make unilaterally, because two systems have to cooperate: a public blockchain that runs continuously, and a national payment system, which does not. Same-day settlement happens when three things line up.
- Onboarding is already complete. A first-time client whose documents are still being reviewed will not settle in twenty minutes, and no rail changes that. See onboarding.
- The crypto leg confirms before the day’s payment cut-off. The confirmation counts below are the desk’s policy, and they are not negotiable downward for a large ticket.
- The chosen rail can carry the amount. Instant rails have per-transaction ceilings set by each bank. A R4 million payment is not an instant payment anywhere in South Africa; it is a batch payment, and batches have cut-off times.
Where those three line up, the money is released the same business day. Where they do not, the trader tells you which one is the constraint before you send anything, rather than after.
Rand rails
EFT, RTC and PayShap, honestly described.
Three different systems with three different personalities. Your bank’s marketing names for them may differ; the underlying clearing does not.
| Rail | How it actually moves | Typical arrival | Practical ceiling | Cut-off behaviour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard EFT | Batched and cleared through BankservAfrica overnight | Same day within one bank; usually the next business day between banks | No practical ceiling for a desk ticket | Must be released before the sending bank’s cut-off, otherwise it joins the next business day’s batch. No weekend or public holiday processing |
| Same-day or priority EFT | A priority batch run during the business day | Same business day | Bank-set, usually generous | An earlier cut-off than standard EFT and a higher fee. This is the workhorse for large tickets |
| RTC — Real-Time Clearing | Cleared individually rather than in a batch | Usually within a minute, occasionally up to an hour | Each bank sets its own per-transaction ceiling. It is designed for retail-scale amounts, not seven-figure tickets | Runs during a defined service window on business days. Outside the window a payment falls back to EFT |
| PayShap | The rapid payments service, addressed either to an account or to a ShapID proxy such as a cellphone number | Seconds | Each participating bank sets a per-transaction cap, and it is small relative to a desk ticket | Runs continuously, including weekends and public holidays |
Why a large payment is not an instant payment
Two practical consequences. A large ticket is normally paid as one same-day EFT rather than split into instant payments, because splitting a payment to fit under a ceiling looks exactly like structuring and the desk will not do it. And a Friday afternoon trade that misses the cut-off settles on Monday — the trader will say so before you send, not after.
Bank reviews
Why your bank looks at a large inbound credit.
South African banks are accountable institutions under the same Financial Intelligence Centre Act that governs this desk, and banks elsewhere run equivalent monitoring under their own rules. A credit that is large relative to the normal behaviour of the account will generate an internal alert. That is the system working, not the system failing.
What usually happens: the credit reflects but is held pending review, or it reflects and the bank calls you within a day or two to ask what it relates to. What occasionally happens on a first large credit into a personal account: the bank asks for documentary support before releasing it.
What helps, in order of usefulness:
- Tell your banker in advance. A one-line message — a credit of about this size, from a crypto asset sale, arriving this week — turns a two-day hold into a short call. This is the single highest-value thing you can do.
- Have the written confirmation ready. It names the desk, the trade, the rate and the amount, and it is exactly the document a bank asks for.
- Do not split the payment to look smaller. It has the opposite effect. Monitoring systems are built to detect exactly that, and deliberate structuring is an offence in its own right.
- Use the account you actually use. A credit into a dormant account attracts more attention than a credit into a working one.
What the desk will do: provide proof of payment on request, confirm the trade to your bank if you ask it to, and stay reachable. What no desk can do is instruct your bank to release funds. Treat any claim to the contrary as a warning sign.
A firm rule
Settlement is only ever to an account in your own name.
Money goes to the verified client, into an account carrying the verified client’s name, and to no one else. Not a spouse, not a business the client owns, not a friend who is owed money, not an attorney who is not a party to the trade. If a company is the trading party, the company is onboarded and the company’s account is used.
This rule exists because customer due diligence under section 21 of the FIC Act is meaningless if the value ends up somewhere the desk never verified, and because third-party settlement is the defining characteristic of a money mule arrangement. It also protects you: an unbroken chain from your trade to your account is the difference between explaining a credit in one sentence and explaining it in a formal response. The full reasoning is on the onboarding page.
The one structured exception is a conveyancing attorney’s trust account against a signed agreement of sale in a property transaction, where the client is the purchaser and the trust account is identified in the sale agreement. That is documented as its own arrangement, with the deed of sale on file, and it is described on the property purchase page.
The crypto leg
On-chain settlement and confirmation counts.
Waiting for confirmations is not caution theatre. A transaction with too few confirmations can still be displaced by a chain reorganisation, and the desk pays out irreversibly against it. These are the counts the desk waits for.
| Network | Block or slot time | Confirmations the desk waits for | Typical wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | About 10 minutes | 3 | Roughly 30 minutes, longer if the fee was underpriced |
| Lightning | Instant channel update | Channel settlement | Seconds, subject to channel capacity |
| Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens | About 12 seconds | 30, or finalisation on very large tickets | Six to fifteen minutes |
| TRON, TRC-20 USDT | About 3 seconds | 20 | Around a minute |
| Solana and Solana USDT/USDC | Sub-second slots | Finalised commitment | Under a minute |
| BNB Smart Chain | A few seconds | 15 | Around a minute |
| XRP Ledger | Ledger closes every 3–5 seconds | One validated ledger | Seconds |
| Base and Arbitrum | A couple of seconds | L2 confirmation, with L1 finality noted | Under a minute |
The network matters more than the speed
The network is written into the quote and must be matched exactly. USDT on TRC-20, ERC-20, BEP-20 and Solana share a ticker and nothing else. Sending on a network the quote did not name is the single most common way clients lose value in this business, and depending on where it lands it may not be recoverable by anyone. Confirm the address and network in the same thread as the quote, and verify the channel itself on the channel verification page before a first transfer.
Your paperwork
What the written confirmation contains.
Issued the same day as settlement, in the channel you dealt in, and repeated by email so there is a durable copy.
| Field | What it records |
|---|---|
| Trade reference | A unique reference that also appears on the bank payment, so the credit on your statement can be tied to the trade |
| Date and time | In South African Standard Time, for both the crypto leg and the fiat leg |
| Client | The verified name of the trading party |
| Direction, asset and network | For example: sell USDT, TRC-20 — the network as executed, not as intended |
| On-chain transaction hash | The identifier that lets you or an auditor verify the transfer independently on a block explorer |
| Amount received | The quantity that actually arrived, alongside the quantity that was quoted where they differ |
| Agreed rate | The single firm rate applied to the whole ticket |
| Gross settlement amount | Amount received multiplied by the agreed rate, in the settlement currency |
| Any separate fees | Stated as a line, with VAT treatment noted. The supply of a crypto asset is a deemed financial service exempt from VAT under s2(1) of the VAT Act; a separately charged service fee may attract VAT |
| Net amount settled | The figure that will appear on your bank statement |
| Receiving account | The verified account, shown in masked form |
| Trader | The name of the person who quoted and executed the trade |
Records
What to keep for SARS.
SARS treats crypto assets as assets of an intangible nature. A disposal is taxed on revenue or capital account according to ordinary principles, and which one applies turns on your facts, not on a rule of thumb. This desk does not give tax advice and will not tell you which treatment applies to you. What it can tell you is which documents make the question answerable. A client taxed in another country needs the same documents for the same reason.
Keep, for each trade:
- The written confirmation from the desk.
- The bank statement page showing the credit or debit, with the reference visible.
- Evidence of how you acquired the asset in the first place — the exchange statement, invoice or transfer that establishes your base cost and acquisition date.
- The transaction hashes for both the acquisition and the disposal.
- Any correspondence that explains an unusual feature of the trade, such as a partial receipt or a returned amount.
Two dates are worth having in mind. South Africa adopted the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework from 1 March 2026, with the first return due to SARS by 31 May 2027. And the desk itself retains transaction records for five years under sections 22 and 23 of the FIC Act, so a trade you have lost the paperwork for can usually be reconstructed on request. That is a convenience, not a substitute for keeping your own records. Our crypto tax guide goes further; a registered tax practitioner takes it from there.
Settlement questions
That the payment is released on the same business day the crypto leg confirms, provided it confirms before the day’s payment cut-off and onboarding is already complete. Money released on a same-day EFT reflects that day; money released after the cut-off, or on a weekend or public holiday, reflects on the next business day. The trader tells you which of those applies before you send.
For a small amount, yes. PayShap caps each transaction at a level set by your bank, and that cap is small relative to a typical desk ticket. Larger amounts settle by same-day EFT. We will not split a payment across multiple instant transfers to get under a cap.
We provide proof of payment, the written confirmation, and confirmation of the trade directly to your bank if you ask us to. We cannot instruct your bank to release funds, and neither can anyone else. The most effective thing is to tell your banker in advance that the credit is coming and what it relates to.
The one confirmed for your corridor before the quote was issued, into an account in your own name. For a South African client that is rand on the rails described above. The desk will not agree a settlement currency it has not confirmed it can pay, and it does not decide for you after the fact.
No. For a South African client, settlement is in rand to a South African bank account in the client’s own name. The SARB’s Financial Surveillance Department does not approve cross-border transfers for the purpose of purchasing crypto assets, buying crypto assets in order to externalise capital contravenes the Exchange Control Regulations and is a criminal offence, and value cannot be repatriated into South Africa through crypto assets under the allowances. Conexus is not a payment or remittance service in any market.
Because an unconfirmed or lightly confirmed transaction can still be displaced, and the payment against it cannot. The counts in the table above are the desk’s policy and apply equally to a first-time client and a long-standing one.
Tell the trader immediately with the transaction hash. If the funds landed on a network the desk supports at an address it controls, recovery is usually possible, may take time and may carry a cost. If they landed somewhere nobody controls the keys — a contract address, or a deposit address that only accepts one chain — recovery is generally not possible for anyone. This is why the network is written into the quote.
Yes. Ask the trader and a formatted confirmation is issued for your records, containing the same fields listed above. For business clients trading regularly, a periodic statement covering all trades in a period is available — see business and treasury.
Ask what settlement will look like before you trade.
Tell a trader the amount, the network and your bank, and you will be told which rail will carry it, which cut-off applies and when the money will reflect.
Investing in crypto assets may result in the loss of capital, as the value is variable and can go up as well as down. A crypto asset is not legal tender and is not a regulated deposit. Conexus Crypto provides an exchange service only and does not provide financial, investment or tax advice.