{"id":689215,"date":"2023-05-21T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-05-21T05:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=689215"},"modified":"2023-05-19T17:41:59","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T15:41:59","slug":"banks-dont-always-read-their-own-terms-and-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/689215\/banks-dont-always-read-their-own-terms-and-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Banks don’t always read their own terms and conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent case brought before the Banking Services Ombud shows that the terms and conditions in banking contracts have to be crystal clear.<\/p>\n

In the case, the complaint looked at fees regarding a home loan account, where the bank charged fees to the complainant for making cash deposits at an ATM.<\/p>\n

The complainant looked at the bank’s pricing guide, which stated that fees would only be charged on an account if the payment was made at a branch and never explicitly mentioned an ATM.<\/p>\n

The Ombud said that a customer enters into a credit agreement with a bank when they obtain a home loan.<\/p>\n

When signing the agreement, it is understood that the customer understands the terms and conditions, including the fees applicable to the account.<\/p>\n

Thus, the relationship between the bank and the customer is contractual in nature.<\/p>\n

However, the Pricing Guide made no mention of deposits at ATMs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe charge a cash deposit fee for any cash deposit into your home loan account at a branch,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The bank agreed that the deposits were made at an ATM, but still said the fees were applicable.<\/p>\n

However, the Ombud said that the pricing guide is far too vague as it only states that a cash deposit fee will be charged at a branch.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the bank agreed to reverse all cash deposit fees charged to the account, and the matter was referred to its home loans department to amend the pricing guide.<\/p>\n

The Ombud said that contractual matters, such as a home loan agreement, must have clear terms and conditions to prevent misunderstandings.<\/p>\n

Although this case was escalated to a dispute, statistics from Ombud showed that mortgage finance disputes reduced in 2022.<\/p>\n

According to the OBS Annual Report 2022, mortgage finance disputes dropped from 12% of all disputes in 2021 to 7% in 2022.<\/p>\n

Overall, digital banking (17%) and current account (22%) issues were the main issues brought forward to the Ombud:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Read<\/strong>: South Africa\u2019s biggest long-term problem: Capitec CEO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent case brought before the Ombud for banking services shows that banks must have clear stated terms and conditions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":689221,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-689215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689215","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689215"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689871,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689215\/revisions\/689871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}