Buying at a cash desk or OTC office
A counter or a desk quotes one price for the entire amount instead of filling an order book. Two very different businesses share the name.
Everything else on this list puts your order into a market. A desk does the opposite: it quotes you a single price for the whole amount and fills it itself. For a large purchase that is not a luxury — an order big enough to move the visible market gets a worse average price than a quote would have been.
Two quite different businesses use the same word, and telling them apart is most of this page.
The two things called OTC
A brokerage desk. Usually attached to a licensed exchange or a broker, reached by appointment or by an application form. You are onboarded as a client, you get a written quote valid for a short window, you settle by bank transfer, and you receive documents. Minimum sizes are typically substantial.
A physical cash office. A counter in a city centre where you hand over notes and coins are sent to your wallet. Common in some countries, absent in others, and the quality range is enormous — from licensed operators with a compliance department to a room with a laptop.
How the pricing works
There is no separate fee. The desk quotes one price, and the difference between that price and the market is the entire cost — commonly a low single-digit percentage, wider for cash, wider again for unusual currencies or odd hours.
This is honest as long as you check it. A quote is comparable to the market price in five seconds on a phone, and a desk unwilling to let you take those five seconds has told you something.
- Ask for the quote in writingAmount, price, total, validity window. A desk that will not put it in a message is not a desk.
- Compare it to the market before agreeingNot after. The window exists precisely so both sides can be sure.
- Confirm who the counterparty isA registered company with an address, not a first name. Ask for the registration number and look it up.
- Keep the paperworkReceipt, invoice, confirmation. This is what your bank will ask for later, and it is the entire reason to prefer a legitimate desk.
The receipt is the product
What you are buying from a legitimate desk, beyond the coins, is a documented transaction: a record of where the money went and where the coins came from. On the day a bank asks — and for a large sum it will — that paperwork is the difference between a short conversation and a frozen account.
Verification
Full, at any desk worth using, and more thorough than a retail platform: identity documents, source of funds, and for larger amounts a conversation about the purpose of the transaction. Transfers between regulated firms also carry sender and recipient details with them — the travel rule in the glossary explains what that means in practice.
A desk that offers to skip all of this for a fee is not offering privacy. It is offering to make you the least protected party in a transaction that a regulator may later look at.
What goes wrong
The price moves at signing. A quote is agreed, then the number changes at the moment of payment, with an explanation about volatility. A written quote with a stated validity window removes the argument entirely.
The wallet is theirs. Coins are sent to an address the office provides, "for safekeeping" or because your wallet is "not compatible". Arrive with your own wallet and your own address, or do not arrive.
Cash in public. Carrying a significant sum to a meeting arranged online is a physical risk before it is a financial one, and meetings that must happen away from a registered office should not happen.
The office has no licence where one is required. Some countries require registration for exactly this activity; a desk operating without it is a legal problem you inherit, not just theirs.
An OTC desk found through a private message is not an OTC desk
Real desks are reachable through the front door of a company that exists: a registered name, a published address, a public website you navigated to yourself. Anything introduced to you in a chat is a person claiming to be a desk.
Where it works
| Country | Available | Verification | Cost | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NigeriaBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| South AfricaEFT | Limited | Full verification | 0.5–2% | Same day |
| IndiaBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| IndonesiaBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| PhilippinesBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| VietnamBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| GermanyBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| PolandBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| SwitzerlandBank transfer | Available | Full verification | 0.5–2% | Same day |
| TurkeyBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
| United KingdomBank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 0.5–2% | Same day |
| CanadaWire transfer | Limited | Full verification | 0.5–2% | Same day |
| United StatesWire transfer | Available | Full verification | 0.5–2% | Same day |
| ArgentinaCash | Limited | Not checked | 1–4% | Same day |
| BrazilPix, bank transfer | Limited | Full verification | 1–3% | Same day |
Checked in 15 countries: works without caveats in 2. Each country page carries its own sources and the date it was last checked. All countries →
Read next
Why this site has no rankings explains why the country tables list who operates where without telling you which desk to walk into — that judgement needs the licence register, the paperwork and your own eyes on the office.
The other four routes
Which of them exists where you live is on your country page.