Discovery Bank recently released its fees, discounts and accounts, including an entry-level account, which means that it’s time to take a closer look at how they fit in with the rest of South Africa’s banking options.

For a long time, Capitec had entry-level banking market cornered. Now almost every big bank in the country has an affordable option for clients.

According to BusinessTech, the market has also seen the launch of digital banking options, like TymeBank, FNB’s eWallet Extra (soon to be rebranded as FNB Easy Zero) and Standard Bank (MyMo).

There are now 12 entry-level accounts in the country, some offering account fees as low as R10 a month.

The following graphs compare banking accounts across three categories: monthly fees, bank charges for deposits, and bank charges for withdrawals.

Monthly Account Fees:

TymeBank offered South Africans the first free, fully transactional account in the country.

FNB, which had already launched eWallet eXtra as a free account, was limited to digital transactions only, and has subsequently revealed it will be making the account fully transactional with a card.

TymeBank was followed up by African Bank’s MyWORLD transactional account, which also carries no monthly fee.

Nedbank revised its entry-level account to also have no monthly account fee following the launch of these zero-fee accounts.

Withdrawals and Deposits:

Banks commonly charge a fee for withdrawals and deposits.

Most entry-level accounts have followed the fixed-fee model for transactions, popularised by Capitec. The fixed fee offers a simplified structure for customers, but also carries caps and limits, aimed specifically at customers who have few, low-value transactions.

Discovery, FNB and Standard Bank deviate from the fixed-fee model, but the latter two banks have accounts which do offer fixed fees in the form of eWallet eXtra and Standard Bank’s new MyMo accounts.

TymeBank ‘s withdrawals are free but it doesn’t use an ATM network. You can collect money at Pick n Pay and Boxer till points.

To check out the key transactions for all 12 banks, and in some cases, how they’ve changed over the last year, head on over to BusinessTech.

[source:businesstech]