The cheapest bank accounts in South Africa

The battle for the most affordable entry-level banking account in South Africa has become a race to zero, with a new entrant into the market, Spot Money, bringing a sixth zero-monthly fee option to consumers.

Spot Money is a digital bank born out of the rebranding of Virgin Money SA, offering app-based banking with a linked debit card. It joins the likes of Discovery and TymeBank in being purely digital, without a costly ATM or branch network to maintain.

It carries no monthly account fee, which puts it on the same playing field as many other entry-level banks in the country.

With 15 entry level accounts to choose from, and more on the way – with Bank Zero expected to launch some time this year – we’ve broken down a comparison between these accounts using three fundamentals:

• How much it costs you each month to manage the account;
• How much the banks charge you to put money into the account;
• How much the banks charge you to take money out of the account.

Entry-level banking

South Africa’s entry-level bank accounts vary greatly in form and functionality, with several lenders offering more than one entry-level account.

For example, Nedbank has an extremely basic account in its MobiMoney offering, which carries no monthly costs, but has limited transactional capabilities.

These accounts are targeted at minimal transactions – with limits set on how much money can be processed each month.

It should also be noted that many of these accounts also offer rebates and interest on positive cash balances, which can offset many of the monthly transaction costs. These have not been taken into account here.

Other benefits, such as rewards programmes, discount coupons, or sweeteners like airtime or data have also not been taken into account.

Discovery Bank does not have an entry-level transactional account and thus has been excluded. Capitec is set to introduce new fees at the end of February, while Absa has said it will be doing a belated fee review at the end of March.

Monthly fees

Monthly account management fees for entry-level accounts have become a lightning rod for competition in the segment, with banks shaving cents off the monthly charges to undercut competitors.

Given the basic nature of most entry-level accounts, the monthly handling fee is quickly becoming obsolete, with new entrants scrapping the cost altogether.

Among the 15 entry-level accounts on offer, six carry no monthly admin fee.

Withdrawal fees

While digital banking and card payments are increasingly becoming the norm in South Africa, for much of the population – especially those in the entry-level banking segment – cash is still king. Even among middle and upper-income brackets, having cash on-hand is often a necessity.

Thus withdrawal fees – how banks structure the cost of getting physical cash out of your account – has often been a sore point. Traditional banks have long relied on complicated fee structures to slice as much as they can off the top of any transaction, but since Capitec pioneered the fixed-fee withdrawal structure, this has almost become the baseline for most banks.

Banks with native or own-brand ATMs (or retailer partnerships, as with TymeBank) reward customers for sticking to their systems with lower fees. Accessing your cash at a competing or non-partnered outlet incurs a higher cost.

Deposit fees

Deposits are no longer as straight forward as they once were. In place of the more traditional methods of putting money into accounts – like depositing cash at the ATM or in-branch – banking customers can now also deposit funds through retailers and other digital means.

This has led to retailers partnering with new players in the market: Pick n Pay and Boxer store till points are the de facto ATMs for TymeBank, and Spot uses an ETF method of ‘top ups’ for its accounts, where funds are added through digital codes, or directly from other bank accounts.

For more traditional banks, however, ATM and branch deposits are still the mainstay.