"Even when you have it, it's not necessarily that you are going to use it," Francois Du Plessis, CEO of CFI South Africa, explains why the broker has not applied for an over-the-counter derivatives provider (ODP) licence in its home market. "It also costs around $100,000 to get it done," he told Finance Magnates, on top of an application process that he said runs one to two years.London's trading industry is coming home!The demand itself relies on a single instrument. "Number one on the list, it's gold. I don't think we need to negotiate about this," Du Plessis said. "It's in excess of 60% of all our volume." The Nasdaq 100 comes second, which he said has been "an extremely trending instrument… especially on Instagram and various social media platforms in South Africa." Forex pairs such as USD/JPY and EUR/USD follow.Asked how CFI handled the gold rally from December into January, Du Plessis pointed to the risk desk. "We have an incredible risk management team with various liquidity providers," he said, calling that the difference "between managing that successful book and managing that unsuccessful book."The Cape Town office reaches its two-year mark in November. "The current office here in Cape Town will act as a head office for our expansion throughout Africa," he said.Du Plessis joined CFI's South Africa office last August, after spending almost two years at ATFX. Earlier, he also worked at HFM as country head for South Africa."Just having AI available to them isn't enough anymore"Du Plessis sees the continent's demographics as the main opportunity. "We have the youngest population of any continent globally, which means Africa has the largest expansion potential right now in my opinion," he said. The closest comparison is Latin America, or "Asia 10-15 years ago", rather than Europe, where he said traders and investors are "much more established, much more mature."Younger clients bring different demands. "Just having the latest platform is not even enough anymore," he said. "They want choices. They want variety." That means MetaTrader, TradingView and custom API apps, with AI built in. "Just having AI available to them isn't enough anymore. They want it integrated."He pointed out that clients no longer want to work out a platform: "It needs to be a lot quicker. It needs to be simpler. They want access, and they want it right away."You may also like: Getting to Know your (AI) AgentThe numbers he shared are specific. "Our FTD average at the moment is $106 to be exact," he said, and lifetime deposits per client in South Africa sit "around $10,000." Marketing costs "around $7 per lead," which he called "a bit on the high end", though "conversion percentages have picked up drastically" after staff training and investment in personnel.Direct marketing supplies about 64% of clients and partners, the other 36%. "However, the partner business has a higher quality to it," he said. Conversion, first deposits, repeat business and volume are all higher because partners "have access to signal channels, custom coaching, all that type of stuff." Where a partner brings its own audience, CFI's only cost is the spread revenue it shares.CFI has spent the past two months onboarding master IBs across Africa. "As of the 1st of October, the team would officially be 40% bigger than what the team was when I initially took over," Du Plessis said. However, he said he is picky about who joins. "We are not onboarding just any partner," he said, and criticised brokers that "treat partners as a completely separate entity." His view is different: "They are an extension of us."The service pitch is equally direct. "We have gotten our withdrawals down to under two minutes from you clicking your button till the money is in your bank account," he said. New clients get a call within five minutes. "That is personal touch," Du Plessis said. "That call makes all the difference between having a client for a little while or a client for life."One Licence at Home, Another in the SeychellesCFI holds a Category 1 financial service provider licence from South Africa's FSCA, granted in mid-2024, with operations starting later that year. "It's a non-negotiable to have a license within a country," Du Plessis said. "We will not enter into a region that we are not legally allowed to do business in."Offshore brokers, however, without a local licence, still take South African clients. "The regulator has made it abundantly clear that a local FSP license is a requirement," he said, but has not gone as far as barring them. "I do know that the regulator is in the process of tightening that regulation a lot." Local payment providers are already being asked to onboard only brokers that can show an FSP licence, he said, although "there are obviously still some ways to get deposits such as cryptocurrencies."For CFI, non-South African clients elsewhere on the continent go onto the group's Seychelles licence. "We are onboarding all our African business onto our Seychelles license." He would like to see that change. "We need to get to a point where the majority of regulators within the continent can agree on a set framework," he said, citing the way a MiFID II licence opens the EU. "It would be nice to see if Africa could attain something similar."He also stressed that Africa is not one market. "South Africa is very different to a Nigeria, which is very different to a Zambia, which is very different to a Botswana," he said, which is why CFI plans to hire local team members in each country it enters.South Africa made an ODP licence mandatory for derivative providers in August 2018, but only for those who are market-making, meaning acting as counterparty to client trades. Du Plessis said the ODP's purpose is "to be the market maker onshore", and that CFI currently offsets execution to its offshore entity, which South African rules allow. "As our current structure stands, the ODP is not a must-have. Let me put it that way," he said, adding that it is "a very active discussion" with compliance.His list of costs goes beyond the fee. "You need a COO, you need local compliance, you need in-house compliance," he said, and "every 6 months there's additional audits." His plan is sequencing. "Our current focus is building the business so that that level of expansion makes financial sense," he said, aiming for a South African business that "can sustain itself for the next 10-20 years". After that, "applying for all these additional requirements becomes a no-brainer, " he said.Read more: Too Expensive to Stay? South Africa's ODP Requirements Are Pushing Away Foreign BrokersProp Firms, Prediction Markets and the Nigeria QuestionCopy trading, a product very popular in Africa, is treated differently at home and abroad. "Throughout Africa, it is still a very large market," Du Plessis said, but in South Africa," it's now a very niche product." The broker needs an FSP licence, and an onshore strategy provider does too. For offshore providers, "it just goes to where you are onboarding the client." CFI no longer markets it widely in South Africa, but "within Africa, it's 100% part of the expansion plan still."Agentic copy-trading will destroy the market.I don't think you understand what's coming-The reason that people with viable trading strategies are willing to share them is because deployment is dependent upon each follower to run it themselves.While crowding may reduce…— VolSignals (@VolSignals) September 30, 2026On prop trading, he said the earlier boom has left a mark. "The larger South African market has started losing trust because we are seeing more prop firms close down than almost opening up. It's also a very much revolving door at the moment," he said. "If you have a prop firm that's anything over a year, it's kind of a very successful prop firm right now." He does not see them as rivals. "Your prop client is very different to your actual broker client," he said, and he counts himself among the hybrids. "I'm one of them. I am a prop trader. I'll be very open about that," he said, adding that he has put "99% of all my prop profits" into a broker portfolio since 2020.Neither prop firms nor prediction markets have rules for working locally. "There's no real regulatory framework around prop firms at the moment," he said. "There's no real regulatory framework around prediction markets at the moment." Of the latter, he said: "Personally, I believe it's the next meme coin that we have right now. Everyone wants to be part of prediction markets, and Polymarket is more in the news than most Twitter accounts."The newest product drawing more talk than trades is 24/7 gold. "We have no issue with regards to execution or anything like that on the weekend markets. It's currently just the volume," Du Plessis said. "It lacks that excitement that traders are looking for."This article was written by Arnab Shome at www.financemagnates.com.