No account fee
Being on file with the desk costs nothing, whether you trade monthly or once every two years.
What this costs
The spread is
The spread is
the price.
Section 43 of the ECT Act requires a commercial website to disclose its price in full before a transaction. So this page is blunt: how the desk earns, what that costs at your ticket size, what is charged by somebody other than us, and what we never charge at all.
The ladder below is quoted in rand because the South African market is the one this desk prices from books in. The currency your own settlement lands in is confirmed by a dealer before a quote is given.
Conexus
Indicative USDT rate
—
USDT / ZAR
Margin already inside the rate
The spread is the price
Conexus deals as principal, not as a broker. We do not route your order to an exchange and take a commission for doing so. The desk takes the other side of your trade itself: it buys the crypto asset from you with its own money, or sells you a crypto asset off its own balance.
That produces a simple consequence. Our remuneration is the difference between the reference market rate and the rate the dealer quotes you. There is nothing else. No separate commission line, no platform fee, no "processing charge". When you accept a firm quote, the number in it is final as far as Conexus is concerned.
We would rather say this out loud, because the alternative — a desk advertising "zero commission" while burying its earnings in the rate — is common enough to be the default assumption. Every desk has a spread. The only question is whether it tells you.
Conflicts of interest disclosure
The desk earns the spread and therefore has an interest in a wider one. We disclose that plainly, publish reference market rates on this site so you can compare, and give you the firm quote in writing before you commit to anything. Dealers are not remunerated for persuading you to trade, and no dealer here gives investment advice.
The ladder
Desk margin by ticket size.
The margin narrows as the amount grows, because the fixed work in a ticket barely changes with its size. The values below are confirmed before the site goes live on the production domain and appear as placeholders until then.
{{SPREAD_TIER_1}}
Under R50,000
The desk is not built for this size and prices accordingly. A retail exchange is usually the cheaper tool below this line, and a dealer will tell you so.
{{SPREAD_TIER_2}}
R50,000 – R250,000
The ordinary retail ticket. Priced from local books, settled the same business day.
{{SPREAD_TIER_3}}
R250,000 – R1,000,000
Large enough that exchange slippage starts to exceed the desk margin on most local books.
{{SPREAD_TIER_4}}
R1,000,000 – R5,000,000
Worked as a single ticket. At this size the alternative — feeding an order into a thin book — reliably costs more than the spread.
{{SPREAD_TIER_5}}
Above R5,000,000
Quoted individually against live depth, and sometimes staged across a session by agreement. Enhanced due diligence applies.
Margin is expressed as a percentage of the ticket and is already inside the rate you are quoted — it is not added on top. The calculator on the rates page shows the margin that applies to the amount you type in.
Zero means zero
What the desk never charges.
The list is short and deliberately specific. If you ever see one of these on an invoice from "Conexus", it is not us — verify the channel before you do anything else.
No deposit fee
The desk does not charge you to receive a crypto asset transfer or a fiat payment.
No inactivity fee
A dormant relationship is not billed. Your records stay on file because the FIC Act requires it, not because we are charging for storage.
No withdrawal fee on the fiat leg
The fiat leg is paid to your bank account with no deduction by Conexus. Your own bank may charge you to receive it.
No onboarding or KYC fee
Customer due diligence is a legal obligation of the desk. Charging you for it would be charging you for our own compliance.
No cancellation fee before acceptance
An indicative quote costs nothing and commits nobody. Once a firm quote is accepted in writing it is a binding trade — that is the point of it.
The desk's only official channels are listed on the verify our channels page. Check it before any large transfer.
What is charged by someone other than Conexus
Network fees
The blockchain charges for a transfer, not the desk. The fee is paid by whichever side sends, and it behaves differently on every network. On Bitcoin it is priced per byte of transaction size and is indifferent to the amount being moved. On Ethereum it is gas, paid in ETH, rising with congestion. On TRON it is paid in TRX or covered by staked energy and bandwidth, on BNB Smart Chain in BNB, and on Solana in SOL, where it is very small.
The rule is simple. When you send the crypto leg, you pay the network fee, and you pay it on top of the ticket amount. If the fee is deducted from the amount sent, less arrives than the ticket states, and the trade has to be re-quoted at the rate prevailing when that is discovered. When the desk sends the crypto leg, the desk pays the fee, and the ticket states whether the figure you receive is before or after it.
Bank charges
A rand settlement runs through the South African banking system by EFT, RTC or PayShap. Conexus deducts nothing from that payment. Your own bank may charge you to receive it, particularly on the instant rails, and that charge is set by your pricing plan rather than by us. On an inbound payment to the desk, your bank may charge you to send — for the same reason.
Settlement is always to an account in your own name. The desk does not make third-party payments. That is a compliance requirement, not a preference, and no amount of explanation will change it.
The VAT position
The supply of a crypto asset is a deemed financial service and is exempt from VAT under section 2(1) of the Value-Added Tax Act. The exchange itself therefore carries no VAT. Where a separate service fee is ever charged for something that is not the supply of a crypto asset, VAT may apply to that fee, and it would appear as its own line on your invoice with the tax shown.
That is a description of the legal position, not tax advice. Your own tax consequences are a question for a registered tax practitioner. SARS treats crypto assets as assets of an intangible nature, taxed on revenue or capital account under ordinary principles.
On a real ticket
Four numbers, in this order.
Conexus
Indicative USDT rate
—
USDT / ZAR
Margin already inside the rate
01
The reference rate
Published on this site and built from VALR and Luno order books. You can watch it before, during and after your conversation with a dealer.
02
The margin at your size
Taken from the published ladder above. Nothing is invented in the moment, and nothing depends on how hurried you appear.
03
The firm quote
One number in writing, valid for a stated window, with the amount you will receive after every deduction that is known in advance.
04
The confirmation afterwards
Rate, gross, network fee, net and reference, in writing, for your accountant and for your own records.
Limits, and why they exist
The desk's minimum ticket is minimum ticket — to be confirmed. Below that the economics do not work for either side, and a dealer will tell you plainly that a retail exchange will cost you less.
There is no maximum published as a number, because it is not a number. The ceiling on any given trade is what the desk can genuinely execute in the market it is pricing from at that moment. On large tickets that is discussed in advance, and execution is sometimes staged across a session by agreement rather than forced into one fill.
Three things sit behind the limits:
- Liquidity. Local books are thin. The desk quotes what it can execute rather than what would look impressive in an advertisement.
- Risk. Between the moment your rate is fixed and the moment the desk unwinds, the desk carries the position. That exposure is managed, and managing it puts a ceiling on a single ticket.
- Regulation. Section 21 of the FIC Act requires customer due diligence, section 21A requires enhanced due diligence where risk is higher, and sections 22 and 23 require five-year record keeping. Cash threshold reports under section 28 apply above R49,999.99. Suspicious and unusual transaction reports under section 29 have no threshold at all and must be filed within 15 days, excluding weekends and public holidays.
A firm quote is held for an agreed window — quote validity window — to be confirmed by default, with the actual period always stated in the quote itself. When the window lapses the rate is not silently rewritten: you are told, and you are re-quoted.
Where exchange control comes in
Trades the desk settles in South Africa settle inside South Africa and in rand. Conexus does not move capital offshore and does not repatriate value into the country through crypto assets. SARB Financial Surveillance will not approve cross-border transfers for the purpose of purchasing crypto assets, and buying crypto in South Africa in order to externalise capital contravenes the Exchange Control Regulations and is a criminal offence. The single discretionary allowance is R2 million per calendar year and the foreign capital allowance is R10 million with a SARS Tax Compliance Status PIN — neither is a route to move value out through a crypto asset.
Questions about price
One thing: the spread. The desk buys from you below the reference mid or sells to you above it, and the difference between those two numbers is the entire remuneration for the trade. There is no separate commission line, no platform fee and no service charge sitting behind it. When a dealer quotes you a firm rate, that rate already contains everything Conexus earns.
Because it would be a fiction. The desk takes the other side of your trade as principal, which means it carries the price risk from the moment your rate is fixed until the position is unwound. That risk is bigger on a volatile asset than on a stablecoin, and bigger in a fast market than a quiet one. A single flat fee would either overcharge you on the easy trades or leave the desk unable to quote the hard ones. The spread reflects the actual cost of standing on the other side.
Yes, and the reason is arithmetic rather than generosity. The fixed work in a ticket — the dealer's time, the compliance review, the settlement instruction, the reconciliation — is roughly the same whether the amount is R60,000 or R6,000,000. Spread that cost across a larger amount and the percentage falls. The published ladder is the shape of that, not a loyalty scheme.
The supply of a crypto asset is a deemed financial service and is exempt from VAT under section 2(1) of the Value-Added Tax Act, so the exchange itself does not attract VAT. Where a separate service fee is charged for something that is not the supply of a crypto asset, VAT may apply to that fee, and it would be shown separately on your invoice. Conexus does not give tax advice — confirm your own position with a registered tax practitioner.
Whoever sends the crypto leg pays the network fee for that transfer, and it is charged by the network rather than by Conexus. When you send to the desk, you pay it and you must pay it on top of the ticket amount rather than out of it. When the desk sends to you, the desk pays it, and the ticket states whether the amount you receive is before or after that deduction.
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. Section 42(2)(a) of the ECT Act excludes financial services from the seven-day cooling-off right in section 44. Once a firm quote is accepted in writing, the trade is binding on both sides. That is what makes a firm quote worth having, and it is also why the desk gives you the number, the window and the settlement mechanics before asking you to accept anything.
Three reasons, all boring and all real. Liquidity: the desk quotes what it can actually source in the market it is pricing from at that moment. Risk: the desk carries the position between your fill and its own, and that exposure is managed. Regulation: larger tickets attract enhanced due diligence under section 21A of the FIC Act, and the desk is obliged to understand source of funds proportionate to the amount.
Yes, and disclosing it is the honest response. The desk trades as principal and earns the spread, so a wider spread earns Conexus more. You manage that conflict the way every wholesale market participant does: by comparing the firm quote you are given against the live reference rate published on this site, by asking for the number in writing before you commit, and by walking away when it does not suit you. No dealer here is paid to talk you into a trade, and no dealer here gives investment advice.
Keep reading
Live rates
The reference rates against which you can check any quote you are given.
Large-volume trades
Why, above roughly R1 million, executing on an exchange costs more than the desk spread.
Terms of service
The contractual terms, including the binding effect of an accepted firm quote.
Find out the price at your size.
Give the desk the asset, the direction and the amount. A dealer comes back with a firm rate in writing, and that number already contains everything Conexus earns.
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 does not fall within the National Payment System Act. Conexus Crypto provides an exchange service only and does not provide financial, investment or tax advice.