Cash deposits at PnP a big saver on charges

Depositing money you are paid or receive in cash into your bank account can cost you a lot, but now you can deposit it directly at Pick n Pay till points anywhere in South Africa for just under R20.

Depending on who you bank with and the type of account you have, it could cost you substantially less than making a cash deposit at one of your bank’s ATMs or inside a branch.

At Pick n Pay you can now deposit up to R5,000 at a time and it will cost you R19.95.

If you bank with Absa and make a R5,000 deposit inside a branch, it will cost you R160, Tshiwela Mhlantla, the managing executive of physical channels at Absa, says.

The same deposit would cost you R100 if you used an Absa ATM and you are paying bank charges as you transact, Mhlantla says. 

Some Absa accounts include a number of free ATM cash deposits in a month. “For example, Premium Banking customers receive R6,500 free ATM cash deposits per month and can therefore perform a R5,000 ATM cash deposit free of charge,” she says.

If you make a R5,000 deposit inside an African Bank branch (using a self-service cash acceptor machine), it will cost you R100 – the bank charges 2% of the value deposited, says Neil Thompson, the bank’s head of product and customer value proposition.

But if you deposit cash at Ackermans, Builders Warehouse, Cambridge Foods, Checkers, Game, Jumbo, Makro, Massmart, PEP, Rhino Cash & Carry, Shoprite or U-save Shoprite, it will cost you less: R87.50. And less still if you deposit at Pick n Pay (R19.95), making this the cheapest channel for African Bank customers.

The bank charges R5 for any deposit of up to R1,000 or 1.75% of the total value of any deposit of more than R1,000. 

Capitec customers pay R1.20 per R100 deposited into one of the bank’s ATMs (i.e. R60 to deposit R5,000) or R3.25 per R100 deposited inside a branch (meaning R162.50 to make a R5,000 deposit).

If you bank with First National Bank, what you pay to deposit cash is determined by the type of account you have. For example, if you have an Easy Zero a R5,000 deposit at an FNB ATM would cost you R38.50; if you have an Easy PAYU account it would cost you R55; and on an Easy Smart account, you would pay R33. 

Elmar Gräter, the head of pricing in the Consumer Core Banking division of FNB, says the Easy Zero, Easy PAYU and Easy Smart products are designed for customers with a monthly income of less than R5,500 a month. He says their average monthly deposit at an ATM is R1,100.

Easy Zero customers are not able to make deposits inside a branch and Easy PAYU and Easy Smart customers would have to cough up R205 to deposit R5,000 inside a branch. The same applies to Gold, Premier, Private, and Private Wealth customers. This is because the bank charges a flat fee of R80 plus R2.50 per R100 for cash deposits inside a branch. 

Gräter says most individual customers use the bank’s ATMs rather than a branch - less than 1% of the amounts deposited take place in branches, he says.

To deposit R5,000 using an FNB ATM will cost you R22 if you have a Gold account (ATM deposits are free up to R3,000, thereafter R1.10 per R100); R11 if you have a Premier account (free up to R4,000, thereafter R1.10 per R100) and nothing if you have a Private account (free up to R9,000, thereafter R1.10 per R100) or a Private Wealth account (ATM deposits are free up to R20,000, thereafter R1.10 per R100).

Philippa Weimer, the head of transactional products at Nedbank, says Nedbank MobiMoney (mobile wallet account) clients are able to make deposits up to R4,000 at no cost, while customers use ATMs most for smaller amounts under R2,000.

“We’ve seen that 76% of our clients deposit under R2,000 a month through our ATMs, which is a more cost-effective option. For amounts exceeding this, Pick and Pay is cheaper.”

Standard Bank spokesman Ross Linstrom says cash deposits for personal customers [as opposed to business customers] are mostly low-value, high frequency transactions.

It’s cheaper to deposit small amounts of cash - under R1,200 - at Standard Bank ATMs than at Pick n Pay, he says. The bank charges R1.70 per R100 for cash deposits at its ATMs.

“Cash deposits in our branches are charged at R8.50 + R1.70 per R100 with a R45 minimum charge and this is mainly driven by the high cost of handling cash in branches.”

TymeBank customers pay R4 per R1,000 to make deposits at Pick n Pay and Boxer till points. A R5,000 deposit at Pick n Pay would therefore cost R20. Cheslyn Jacobs, the bank’s head of sales and service, says that the average cash deposit is under R1,000 and therefore most customers pay R4 to make a deposit.