As with life insurance, mobile networks or medical aid, deciding on which bank to do business with can be just as much as a headache.

While the competition between banks in the country grows, with Capitec recently being named best bank in the world, margins between costs are small – but how small?

So what do the banks look like when directly compared? Business Tech, of course, did the work for us.

Breaking down the costs of the most expensive and cheapest accounts available from each bank in South Africa, here’s what they found:

Determining the cheapest account in South Africa would depend on the types of transactions a client would need. From a pure entry level, Absa’s Transact account carries the lowest monthly fee (R4.95), and also the lowest withdrawal fee at point of sale (R1.15).

Withdrawals are a little more complicated, as Standard Bank and FNB charge per R100 – while the other banks carry a single fee. This means the former two are cheaper as for withdrawals under R300 (at R4.80 and R5.55, respectively), but get more expensive than the other banks after that point.

And here’s the graph:

Then, there are the premium accounts:

At the premium level, Capitec, while it argues it is for all types of clients, does not have a comparable account. However, Investec’s private bank account steps in to fill that void.

Premium monthly account fees are higher than mid-tier “gold” accounts, but the pay-as-you-transact fees do not change. Thus the withdrawal fees and the like are similar to those seen with the gold accounts.

Investec is the exception here, as it does not offer a ‘mid-tier’ account at all. It’s withdrawal fees, and a slew of other transactions are all covered by the monthly account fee of R495 per month. However many of its service fees are on the pricier side.

Where premium accounts differ the most is on their monthly account fee, and in the minimum salary requirements needed to have access to this account.

They have a table, too:

With that in mind, you might have a good idea of where to go, especially if you’re just starting out or advancing to the likes of premium.

As for the rest of us – we’ll have to keep scratching our heads as banks add and subtract amounts for no real reason.

[source:businesstech]