First National Bank (FNB) has announced its annual pricing review which sees its service charges remain largely unchanged from implementation date on July 1 this year, according to Janet Johnston, the chief operating of FNB Core Banking Solutions.
She says more than 80 percent of the fees remain the same and prices that have been amended are predominantly below inflation.
Based on an average basket of transactions made by a typical current accountholder, the increase will be about 1.2 percent, while the average savings accountholder will pay about five percent more in fees.
An analysis of FNB's fee adjustments, based on a transaction amount of R350, shows that some fees will go up by 62.5 percent for electronic account payments and for stop orders.
Electronic payments and stop orders will go up from R4 to R6.50 on a transaction amount of R350, on both the FNB cheque account and savings account.
This represents an increase of 62.5 percent on these specific transactions.
Johnston says that the transaction fee would be lower if it is based on a different transaction amount. For example, if you withdraw R1 000, the fee that is charged will decrease by 18.75 percent, from R8 to R6.50.
The bank has reduced some of its fees. For instance, it has cut its dishonour fee (a fee charged to you to honour a debit order when you do not have sufficient funds in your account) from R110 to R95 - a decrease of almost 14 percent.
Cash withdrawal fees have remained largely the same. The fee for withdrawing R350 in cash from the bank's own ATM remains R5 and it will still cost you R10.75 to withdraw R350 from a Saswitch ATM.
There has been a slight increase of just under one percent - from R19.33 to R19.50 to withdraw R350 - in the transaction fee to withdraw cash from an FNB branch.
Johnston says bank charges can be kept at a minimum if customers use the cheaper channels.
FNB will more cost effective in 2006 if clients use the bank's technology-based services such as ATMs, cellphone and internet banking, she says.