Bank South Pacific (BSP) says it has not increased its fees over the last five years and has in fact, reduced many of its fees over this period.
BSP CEO, Robin Fleming, said this in response to the Independent Consumer & Competition Commission (ICCC) statement calling on the bank to remove some fees and reduce interest rates to encourage a savings culture.
ICCC Commissioner and CEO, Paulus Ain, said this after BSP announced another strong performance for 2017
In response, Fleming said BSP is always conscious about the plight of customers and consumers who have experienced financial difficulties in recent years.
He said BSP has made a conscious decision not to pass on any of the increased costs of business over the past 5 years and made every effort to reduce fees and make products more attractive.
They include:
- Issuing fee of K100 for Visa Debit Cards has been eliminated
- Reduced EFTPOS fee for merchants by eliminating minimum fee of K0.50, with the fee now a percentage of the EFTPOS transaction with no minimum fee,
- Cheque collection fees have been reduced,
- ATM and EFTPOS fees have been reduced for around 200,000 customers who have Kundu Standard accounts
Fleming said by the end of 2018, BSP will have foregone fees of almost K50m annually as a result of all these initiatives.
He said in addition, BSP introduced:
- Fee free Kids Accounts,
- Fee free Sumatin accounts whenever transactions are made with BSP, and fee free plus saver accounts with over 280,000 free accounts in total in these specific accounts.
- Each of these accounts earn interest on their deposits at rates up to 3.5 percent pa for the Plus Saver, which is much higher than other banks pay for deposits on call.
Fleming said earlier this year BSP added life cover for any personal loan customer who takes out a new personal loan from 1 January 2018, worth K50,000 or lower, which in the event of death of borrower would see the loan repaid from the insurance cover.
In addition, the interest rate on BSP’s unsecured personal loans has also reduced by over 6 percent in the past 5 years.
BSP has continued to provide services in all major centres and most rural districts despite the difficulties that can be experienced in more remote areas.
(BSP CEO, Robin Fleming)