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.