How much South African banks charge you to pay your Netflix subscription
Standard Bank customers recently reported spotting a new fee on their credit card statements.
The line item on their statements was listed as “Intl. Trans Fee”, and was linked to payments made in US dollars or to international companies.
These fees started in April and May 2018.
Standard Bank told MyBroadband that it has has always charged a fee for international transactions, which was previously known as the Currency Conversion Fee.
This is charged at a rate of 2.5% or 2.75%, dependent on card type, of the transaction amount.
“The International Transaction Fee is charged in cases where the merchants/stores/service providers are located and/or acquired in geographies outside of South Africa,” said Standard Bank.
“In the past, the fee amount used to be included as part of the transaction amount that would reflect on the statement of the account. Now the International Transaction Fee is split out of the transaction amount to ensure ease of reconciliation and transparency for our cardholders.”
To find out what South Africa’s other banks charge users, we contacted the financial institutions.
Nedbank
Chris Wood, Nedbank Executive: Card Issuing and Payments, told MyBroadband the bank does charge a currency conversion fee on international transactions of 2%.
“Part of this fee is used to cover the costs incurred by Nedbank via the associations – Mastercard, Visa, and American Express,” said Wood.
“We are committed to transparency in our pricing, and this fee is disclosed on our pricing schedules.”
For transactions where the amount is billed in rand, but the merchant is acquired internationally, Wood said there are two scenarios.
“Nedbank issues cards from three associations, namely Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. For American Express, there is no fee charged, as they do not bill us a cross-border fee for these transactions.”
“We therefore do not charge our clients a fee. For the other associations, they bill us a fee for these transactions.”
Wood said that as Netflix moves to rand-based pricing, clients using any of their American Express issued cards – such as the Greenbacks American Express card – will not be charged any additional fee.
Absa
Cowyk Fox, Managing Executive: Unsecured, Absa Retail, and Business Banking at Absa, said the only fee charged is a currency conversion fee.
“The only fee that is levied is the currency conversion fee of 2.75%. For instance, based on a rand transaction value of R100 – after converting from US Dollar to ZAR – the applicable transaction fee will be R2.75,” said Fox.
This applies to dollar purchases and subscriptions.
“The fees are charged to cover the costs associated with the conversion of the original currency to rand.”
If a rand subscription fee is paid to an international company like Apple, however, no currency conversion fees will be levied.
FNB
FNB said it does not charge transactional-level fees.
“The bank charges a currency conversion fee of 2.75%, which is embedded in the transaction value,” said FNB.
“This fee only applies to foreign currency transactions, but is not applicable to international transactions charged in rands.”
Capitec
“Capitec does not charge any currency conversion fees on international purchases. Furthermore, no transaction fees are charged when paying with your Capitec credit card,” said the bank.
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