Cape Town - Nedbank Group [JSE:NED] has again emerged as the
most expensive bank in South Africa, the annual Finweek Bank Charges Report
released on Thursday showed.
It has been eight years since sister publication Finweek
first published the report and "finally the country’s big financial
institutions seem to be paying attention", the magazine said in its cover
story of its latest edition.
Finweek's investigation revealed that three out of the
country’s big four banks have reduced fees across a range of products and
offerings.
Nedbank, the banking group with the country’s smallest
retail footprint, has emerged as the country’s most expensive bank.
"We rated it as the most expensive in our earliest
studies, and after it aggressively cut fees in 2007, it has seen a steady rise
in pricing while its peer group has taken the hatchet to the cost of individual
transactions," according to Finweek.
Some of the findings inlcude:
In 2012, FNB has again emerged as the cheapest bank on the
Pay as You Transact option and Absa Group [JSE:ASA] is the cheapest bank on the
Package option, having dropped their fees by 33% when compared to the 2011
charges.
As in 2011, Standard Bank Group [JSE:SBK] is the most
expensive bank on the Package option, however, the Standard Bank fees dropped
by 38% on the Pay as You Transact option, when compared to the 2011 charges.
All of the banks effected double digit decreases in their
2012 fees for the Pay as You Transact option, with only Nedbank imposing a
marginal increase (of 3%) for this option.
For the Pay as You Transact and Package options, the
percentage difference (in monthly bank charges) from the cheapest to the most
expensive bank is 58% and 67% respectively.
Visit Finweek for the full report.
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