Most banks have lowered charges: Solidarity

Four of the five large commercial banks in South Africa have lowered the cost of virtually all their accounts over the past year - Nedbank being the only exception‚ according to the Solidarity Research Institute's (SRI) third annual report on bank charges.

Capitec‚ whose bank charges were already the lowest in 2010 and 2011‚ lowered its charges even further in 2012‚ the findings of the report - which compares the bank charges of the various personal bank accounts - showed.

Paul Joubert‚ senior economics researcher at the SRI‚ said although noteworthy changes had occurred since the previous report was published‚ one aspect had not changed.

"When the cheapest accounts of the five banks are compared‚ Capitec's Global One account is still the least expensive of them all.

"This account's average bank charges across eight different user profiles amount to R55‚50 a month‚ which is a 15.9% decrease from R66‚00 in 2011.

"By contrast‚ Nedbank's cheapest option is its Savvy Electronic account.

"This account's average monthly bank charges are more than double those of Capitec and‚ in addition‚ this account's charges have increased by 4.5%‚ from R107.79 to R112.61‚ between 2011 and 2012."

According to Joubert‚ lower charges and stronger competition make up the main theme of this year's report.

"It appears that consumers are more informed and are putting more pressure on their banks to offer better value for money.

"Judging by the decreases in four of the five large banks' charges‚ it seems that this consumer pressure is starting to pay off."