Which South African Bank is the best?

Banks operate on a simple principle. You deposit your money with them and they lend it out to other customers at a high interest rate. They then pay you a low interest rate and pocket the difference.

SA Banks dont believe in this however. In addition to the above, they normally charge you a monthly fee (R10-R30) for the honour of belonging to them and then charge you a fee for anything you do with your money (ATM withdrawals, swiping your debit card and even going so far as to charge you a fee for inter-account transfers!)

My girlfriend is currently a student and banks with Standard Bank. Her bank charges come to about R60 a month with Standard Bank. Deciding enough is enough, we decided to see if they have a better account option for her. As it turns out, all they tried to do was to sell her an account that would have cost her even more.

We walked out of Standard Bank furious and decided to see if FNB would be any better. Even though I, myself, bank with FNB, I was doubtfull that they would be significantly better. I was horribly wrong

FNB offer an account called the Life Start Student Account. Total bank charges : R13.50

Unlimited FNB ATM withdrawals
Unlimited debit card purchases
Unlimited debit orders
Unlimited stop orders
Free Internet Banking
Free Cellphone Banking
etc, etc

The only things that cost anything are withdrawals from branches, using other banks ATM's and other unusual transactions.

The total bank charges for the month is simply R13.50

I am a big believer in rewarding any company that treats its customers fairly, and even more so when all the competitors do not. So, to every student out there that is paying bank charges in excess of R13.50, visit your nearest FNB branch and change banks.