South Africa's cheapest bank accounts

According to a MyBroadband examination of a basket of transactions, Bank Zero provides the cheapest low-cost banking service in South Africa.

All of South Africa’s main conventional and digital banks provide low-cost entry-level accounts for people who prefer a pay-as-you-transact approach to products with higher monthly administrative costs.

Bank accounts with monthly costs of less than R10 are available from Absa, Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank, Nedbank, TymeBank, and Bank Zero.

MyBroadband analysed the transaction fees associated with various low-cost bank accounts.

We calculated a total cost and selected a winner using a basket of monthly purchases. The following transactions are included in the basket:

• The monthly account fee
• One cash deposit of R1,000
• Two cash withdrawals of R1,000 at own bank
• One cash withdrawal of R1,000 at another bank
• Three external debit orders
• Three payments to other banks
• Two prepaid airtime purchases
• Two prepaid electricity purchases
• 20 SMS notifications

South Africa’s digital banks give considerable savings over traditional banks, providing consumers are willing to forego some privileges, such as the opportunity to make deposits and withdrawals at a branch.

These new banks only accept deposits at supported point-of-sale terminals and ATMs of other banks.

Standard Bank came out on top among the country’s established banks. It should be noted, however, that it was by a narrow margin, with only R1.55 separating its total basket value from that of FNB’s Easy PayU account.

The graphic below summarises the basket comparison among the five banks’ accounts.

Bank Zero and TymeBank’s PoS deposit fees are determined by the shop. For the analysis, we used Shoprite’s R19.95 cost.

Bank Zero’s basket cost R32.95 in total, while TymeBank, the other digital bank examined, was the next-most economical at R41.95.

The total cost of Standard Bank’s entry-level account is R63.30, with FNB’s Easy PayU and Capitec’s Global One following closely after at R64.85 and R72.00, respectively.

Standard Bank’s MyMo PayT account has one of the highest administrative costs of the bunch, but its reduced withdrawal fees for other banks’ ATMs helped it take first place among the big banks.

If FNB charged less for prepaid power recharges, their Easy PayU account would have been less expensive than Standard Bank’s. Standard Bank costs R1.50 per purchase, whereas it charges R2.70.

While there is no administrative charge with Nedbank’s pay-as-you-go account, regular transactions are more expensive, bringing the basket cost to R105.10.

Absa’s Transact account was the most costly, costing R108.90. This was due mostly to increased SMS notification, deposit, and withdrawal fees.

The following table compares the banking costs for entry-level accounts from different South African banks.