Bank fees
One of my bug bears is bank fees – I can’t believe how many people are over paying each month when there are so many better value options. But it seems that it is not only individuals that are being fleeced by the banks.
I read that the justice department’s Third Party Fund (TPF) is paying more in bank fees than they are earning in interest. This might not seem so strange (given that this is the case for most of us) but when we consider that billions of rands pass through the fund each year then this is alarming. In fact, the fund paid more than R27million in bank fees last year!
Clearly there are some “issues” that need to be resolved here – I have no idea how big the fund is – it took in around R2.8billion last year and paid out a similar amount…but even if it is R1billion then at 5% interest it should have received around R50million interest (almost double what it apparently received).
The bottom line is this: the bank is not your friend; they are a business and will try to make as much money (for their shareholders) as is possible. If you are paying more than R80-R90 pm in bank fees then you are over paying. And until you do something about it, it will stay like that!