About ODP Gateway

Who is behind this

My name is André Claassen. I have spent twenty years in South African foreign exchange — as a founder, a dealer, and an FSCA-approved Key Individual.

I started in the industry in 2006, co-founded my first commercial FX brokerage in 2008, and in 2012 founded Offshore FX, running it as a Treasury Outsourcing Company while holding the Key Individual, Representative and Compliance Officer roles myself. Today I run Offshore FX Global (Pty) Ltd, an FSCA-licensed intermediary under Category 1.13 (derivative instruments) and 1.18 (short-term deposits), dealing for importers, exporters and private clients. I am also an approved Key Individual for other licensed FSPs in the derivatives space.

The business operates in partnership with one of South Africa's largest treasury outsourcing firms and with a global foreign exchange provider, and over twenty years I have built dealing and intermediary relationships across the major South African banks — working alongside their dealing desks and exchange control departments on cross-border transactions. I hold RE1 and RE5, and a BCom from the University of Stellenbosch.

Working with me are former South African Reserve Bank people — thirty-four years inside the Bank in one case — who assist clients with complex cross-border transactions. In a field where exchange control and cross-border structuring are as much practice as they are rule, that is not a small thing.

I am currently the named valuation officer on an ODP application before the FSCA. So the process described on this site is not something I have read about. It is something I am in.

Why ODP Gateway exists

Because of that work, ODP enquiries find me.

Brokers, offshore groups and fintechs approach me asking whether they need FSCA authorisation as an OTC derivative provider, what it involves, and who in South Africa can actually do it. It is a reasonable question to bring to someone who has held FSCA licences since 2012 and works daily with cross-border flow.

It is not, however, a question I answer myself.

An ODP application requires regulatory strategy, capital modelling, risk framework design, compliance, technology and reporting readiness, and legal documentation. I am not a regulatory attorney, a risk consultant or a capital modeller, and I do not pretend to be.

What I am is a deal maker. Twenty years in one industry, staying in touch with the same people, means I know who is genuinely good at what — and my useful skill has always been putting the right parties together and keeping a transaction moving until it closes.

I refer business to people I would use myself. That is the whole basis of it, and in a market this small it is the only sustainable way to work: a bad introduction costs me a relationship I have spent years building.

ODP Gateway is that applied to one specific problem — a firm that needs South African authorisation, and no idea who to call. It is a front door, not a consultancy.

Who does the work

I introduce ODP applicants to an established specialist practice with a track record in complex financial services authorisations, including work for major financial institutions and alongside international law firms. References are available on request, subject to client confidentiality.

I work with that practice on ODP matters but operate independently of it. Your contract is with them, and so is the accountability for the work.

How I am paid, and why I say so

ODP Gateway is paid a fee based on the engagement by the specialist practice. You pay the practice for the work. You do not pay me separately, and the introduction does not increase what the engagement costs you.

I say this openly because you should know it before you take the call. The practice quotes on scope, after its own assessment — I have no part in setting it.

It also means the only thing worth anything to me is an introduction that works. If your business does not need ODP authorisation, or if what you actually need is a regulatory attorney rather than a licensing specialist, I will tell you. That is a shorter conversation and a better outcome than the alternative.

Beyond ODP

The same network extends to adjacent work — tax firms, cross-border structuring, exchange control, and the banking relationships behind all of it. If your ODP question turns out to be part of a larger cross-border problem, I can usually point you at the right person for the rest of it.