Bank charges on savings account have increased by up to 66 percent,
according to the latest Personal Finance survey.
Absa, First National Bank, Mercantile, Pick`n Pay Financial Services and
Standard Bank have all increased certain transactions in the period under
review - October 1999 to May 2000.
Several new fees have also been implemented so watch out for these. Banks
that have put new fees in place are Absa, First National Bank (FNB) and
Standard Bank.
The biggest increase in a transaction fee this time round was at Pick`n Pay
Financial Services and the charge that saw the biggest increase was drawing
a provisional statement from the call centre. The fee for this transaction
if the balance in your account is under R2 000, has been increased from R3
to R5, or by 66 percent since October last year.
Pick`n Pay Financial Services clients will also find their debit and stop
order charges have been upped by 50 percent to R3 each.
Other transaction charges that have been increased substantially at Pick`n
Pay Financial Services are balance inquiries and cash withdrawals at ATMs
that are not part of Pick`n Pay or its financial services associate, Boland
PKS.
Balance inquiry costs have been increased from R2 to R2,74 and now cost 37
percent more, while cash withdrawals from Saswitch ATMs have been increased
from R5,70 to R7,75 (based on R250) and cost 23 percent more. The more you
draw, the more you pay.
If you bank with Absa, you had better look after your ATM card because the
replacement charge has increased by 45 percent to R20.
Various other fees have been increased at Absa - these increases range
between seven and eight percent.
The biggest change in any one transaction at FNB was a 49 percent increase
in cash withdrawals from ATMs that do not form part of FNB`s own ATM
network and if your balance is less than R1 500. Cash withdrawals from
FNB`s own ATMs are also up 25 percent if you allow your balance to drop
below R1 500.
The lesson for you is stick to your bank`s own ATMs when doing your banking
transactions. Alternatively, when you not need to draw cash, make use of
telephone and Internet banking.
Mercantile adjusted only one of its transaction fees. The debit order
charge has been increased by 32 percent, but the stop order fee remains the
same, so try to use stop orders if you can.
Stop orders enable you to set up a payment to a company with your bank, as
opposed to a debit order, in which you give a company authorisation to
deduct money from your account.
Charges that have been hit by increases at Standard Bank are debit orders,
stop payments, card replacements, cash withdrawals via ATMs, balance
inquiries via ATMs and provisional statements from inside your branch.
Specific transactions have been increased from five to 25 percent.
You can avoid many of these charges by maintaining a balance of R5 000 in
your account. The purpose, after all, of having a savings account, is to
save.
If you are using your savings account to make your monthly payments, you
are probably in the wrong account. A transmission or simple transaction
account would be the cheaper option.
Four of the nine banks surveyed have not increased any of their fees since
the survey was last published in October last year.
The idea behind publishing these tables is to keep a watch on charges and
on how much the banks are increasing these, to help you judge whether you
are getting a good deal at your own bank and also to draw your attention to
cheaper forms of banking at your own bank.
Personal Finance compares the banking costs of cheque accounts,
transmission accounts and savings accounts across the big banks every six
months.
The savings account cost comparison is the last in the series for the first
half of this year.