Standard Bank's new fees and account changes for 2021

Standard Bank has published its updated fee schedules for all its accounts, which will come into effect on 1 January 2021.

The price adjustments include a monthly account fee freeze on all but one account for 2021, as well as fee restructuring on basic transactions such as withdrawals and deposits.

Another change is the dropping of cheques, in line with an industry move to do away with that payment method, from 31 December 2020. Any cheques received before 31 December and processed in January 2021 will be subject to the 2020 cheque pricing of R55, the bank said.

"To continue to support social distancing through wider access to ATMs, Standard Bank has removed the ATM cash withdrawal

Saswitch fee charged to its customers who withdraw cash using ATMs belonging to other banks. This means that its customers can use any ATM near to them and only pay the standard ATM banking fee, which has been reduced to R10 per R1,000."

The bank said that customers will also be able to access value-added services, like airtime and data, more frequently and affordably.

Notably, the bank said it will be launching a new hybrid savings account with zero monthly fees, free ATM cash deposits and interest on positive balances, to compete with several other ' zero fee' accounts launched in the market in recent years.

These are the changes to the monthly fee accounts, including links to the fee respective schedules: The fees listed below are all calculated on a pay-as-you-transact basis, after 'free' limits have been reached, and exclude bundles options and the rebates.

Standard Bank offers rebates on its Elite and Prestige accounts with a positive cash balance for a full calendar month. This ranges from a minimum of R86 for a balance of R10,000, to R424 for a R100,000 balance.

As with most of Standard Bank's accounts, monthly fees have been frozen for 2021 in the entrylevel category, so the Access Account has the same cost (R5.85). MyMo accounts opened before 31 December will have zero monthly fee for a year - but any new accounts created in 2021 will carry the R4.95 account fee.

Withdrawal fees have been consolidated between accounts, with both MyMo and Access now charging a fixed fee per R1,000 or part thereof withdrawn.