About
A small forex desk, not a trading room
The Rand Desk is a guide to forex for readers in South Africa. It explains quotes, costs and the licence check. It does not take deposits and it does not tell you when to buy.
What it is for
Public writing about this market is mostly sales. The words are aimed at someone who might deposit today, and the examples are in dollars, set in a time zone we do not live in. These pages start from the other end: a person who earns in rand, who has seen a USD/ZAR number on the news, and who deserves a plain account of what the button will actually do.
The notes are in English and in Afrikaans. The English edition lives at the root of the site. Afrikaans lives under /af/. Most of the platforms you will be offered are still in English, so the interface pictures are too. The captions around them are translated.
What it is not
It is not a broker, not a signal service, not a managed account, and not a personal recommendation. It does not rank firms and it does not take a fee for sending you to one. A message that uses this name and then asks for a deposit is not this site.
It is also not a tax opinion, not exchange-control advice, and not a substitute for the FSCA register. Those offices publish the current rule. A guide published on a Tuesday cannot be the current rule by Friday.
How to read the numbers
Every price in the pictures is drawn. The sample we keep repeating, sell 18.2410 and buy 18.2461, is there so the arithmetic can be checked by hand. It is not a forecast and not a quote from a broker. When your ticket disagrees, the ticket is the real world.
This edition was prepared for 5 October 2026. If a rule or a market habit has moved since then, the page should be read as a method, not as a news report.
The pictures
The screens are drawn for this guide: a phone quote, a watchlist, an order ticket, a notebook, a margin panel, a financing week, a withdrawal test, a stop that sits inside the spread, a size card, and a weekday clock. They repeat the same sample prices so you can check the arithmetic. They are not screenshots of a broker, and they are not the FSCA register. The checklist picture says so on its own face.
If you want the official page
- Financial Sector Conduct Authority for the register of authorised firms.
- South African Reserve Bank for exchange-control material.
- South African Revenue Service for tax guidance.