{"id":24669,"date":"2012-10-19T17:47:52","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T15:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=24669"},"modified":"2012-10-22T09:26:32","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T07:26:32","slug":"nedbank-defends-account-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/24669\/nedbank-defends-account-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Nedbank defends account fees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Nedbank\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2626-Nedbank\">Nedbank<\/a> has responded to the 2012 Solidarity Bank Charges Report, in which it was listed as the most expensive bank in terms of fees attached to its &#8220;cheapest account&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday (18 October 2012) union <a title=\"Solidarity\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2648-Solidarity\">Solidarity<\/a> released its banking charges report, which found that four of the five large commercial banks in South Africa had lowered the cost of the bulk of their accounts over the past year.<\/p>\n<p>Nedbank was reportedly the only exception, having increased the fees attached to its &#8220;Savvy \u2013 Electronic&#8221; account by 4.5%.<\/p>\n<p>The study compared the bank charges of various personal bank accounts of <a title=\"Absa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1877-Absa-Bank\">Absa<\/a>, <a title=\"FNB\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1730-FNB-First-National-Bank\">FNB<\/a>, <a title=\"Standard Bank\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2385-Standard-Bank\">Standard Bank<\/a>, Nedbank and <a title=\"Capitec\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/3081-Capitec\">Capitec<\/a> &#8211; in which the charges were calculated as an average of eight transaction profiles, the effect of interest or forgone interest excluded.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Each bank\u2019s cheapest account in 2011 and 2012 &#8211; Solidarity<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" width=\"100%\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Bank<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Cheapest account (2011)<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Costs 2011<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Costs 2012<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong><strong>Cheapest account (2012)<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Difference<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Capitec<\/td>\n<td>Global One Account<\/td>\n<td>R66.00<\/td>\n<td>R55.50<\/td>\n<td>Global One Account<\/td>\n<td>-R10.50<span style=\"color: #008000;\"> (-15.9%)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>FNB<\/td>\n<td>Smart &#8211; Unlimited<\/td>\n<td>R74.53<\/td>\n<td>R60.95<\/td>\n<td>Smart &#8211; Unlimited<\/td>\n<td>-R13.58<span style=\"color: #008000;\"> (-18.2%)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Absa<\/td>\n<td>Silver Package<\/td>\n<td>R148.14<\/td>\n<td>R91.05<\/td>\n<td>Silver Value Bundle<\/td>\n<td>-R57.09<span style=\"color: #008000;\"> (-38.5%)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Standard Bank<\/td>\n<td>Classic Cheque &#8211; fixed fee<\/td>\n<td>R134.89<\/td>\n<td>R109.81<\/td>\n<td>Achiever &#8211; Electronic<\/td>\n<td>-R25.08<span style=\"color: #008000;\"> (-18.6%)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Nedbank<\/td>\n<td>Savvy &#8211; Electronic<\/td>\n<td>R107.79<\/td>\n<td>R112.61<\/td>\n<td>Savvy &#8211; Electronic<\/td>\n<td>R4.82 <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">(+4.5%)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<p><strong>Nedbank on the back foot<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a statement responding to the report, Nedbank said that it commended Solidarity for tackling the banking fee report &#8211; but contested its findings, saying that the account used in the comparison was not even correctly identified.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Nedbank Savvy Account is not Nedbank\u2019s \u2018cheapest bank account\u2019 as referred to in the report,&#8221; said <a title=\"Anton de Wet\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/3534-Anton-de-Wet\">Anton de Wet<\/a>, managing executive client engagement at Nedbank. De Wet did not say which Nedbank account was, in fact, the cheapest.<\/p>\n<p>De Wet further contested the report, overall, noting that comparing various accounts, from various institutions, which cater to various clients&#8217; needs, was a complex issue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We acknowledge the difficulty in conducting a fair year-on-year comparison of average monthly bank fees across a wide range of product offerings and commend the Solidarity Research Institute\u2019s attempt to do this in the interests of promoting consumer education,&#8221; Nedbank said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However, each product offering has different qualification criteria and are tailored for the specific needs of a client segment. Banks also add and remove product offerings and conduct fee reviews during the 12-month period between reports which further contributes to the complexity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are confident that Nedbank Savvy offers great value for clients who do high-volumes of mostly electronic transactions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>De Wet went on to announce that as of 1 January 2013, Nedbank would be reducing its fees for other banks\u2019 ATM withdrawals by R10.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related article<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/24534\/most-banks-have-lowered-their-charges-solidarity\/\"><strong>Most banks have lowered their charges \u2013 Solidarity<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"FNB named most innovative bank in the world\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/23968\/fnb-named-most-innovative-bank-in-the-world\/\"><strong>FNB named most innovative bank in the world<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Best banks for business\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/22390\/best-banks-for-business\/\"><strong>Best banks for business<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/6917\/banking-withdrawal-fees-who-is-the-cheapest\/\"><strong>Withdrawal fees \u2013 how SA banks stack up<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/18542\/most-popular-bank-accounts-in-sa\/\"><strong>Most popular bank accounts in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Why FNB is rated as the top bank in SA\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/17467\/why-fnb-is-rated-as-the-top-bank-in-sa\/\"><strong>Why FNB is rated as the top bank in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"SA has highest ATM fees: survey\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/15476\/sa-has-highest-atm-fees-survey\/\"><strong>SA has highest ATM fees: survey<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Best and worst banks in SA: reputation survey\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/11995\/best-and-worst-banks-in-sa-reputation-survey\/\"><strong>Best and worst banks in SA: reputation survey<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nedbank has responded to the 2012 Solidarity Bank Charges Report, in which it was listed as the most expensive bank in terms of fees attached to its &#8220;cheapest account&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[4406,26,1799,1632],"class_list":["post-24669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bank-fees","tag-headline","tag-nedbank","tag-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24669"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24717,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24669\/revisions\/24717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}