Left your wallet at home, 30 Kms from home and need petrol–here’s how to get out of that pickle. Cell phone banking to the rescue

Here’s the problem: you’ve left home to go to work – luckily you travel to work in the opposite direction to peak traffic – hehe, what a win!  After 30Kms you breeze over that intersection with the longest queue (in the opposite direction of course), you notice your “low fuel” warning light go on and you realise that you have forgotten your wallet at home!  Horror of horrors… now what?  U-turn is definitely out of the question – there’s no ways the fuel in the reserve tank will last that peak traffic. 

So you have a few options:
1) Mozy over to the local petrol station and convince them to give you some fuel and offer to leave your cheap watch as a deposit;
2) Carry on to work and borrow some cash from friends at work… mmmm there must be a better solution;
3) Stop the car at the next robot and beg for some cash… mmm, I’ve always wondered how much those okes make at the robots;
4) Ok, Ok… here’s the best solution: luckily, you are an FNB account holder and you use cell phone banking – so you login and select the “Send Money” option.  Select the FromAccount, and amount, and cell phone number of the recipient (that’s you!).  Click finish and voila – you’ll receive an SMS with details:

Once you've received an SMS telling you that you have been sent money:

Dial *120*277# to access the eWallet

Set a secret 5-digit PIN for the eWallet

Select 'Withdraw cash' and then 'Get ATM PIN'

You'll receive an SMS with an ATM PIN

Go to an FNB ATM

At the ATM press the green button (enter/proceed) and then Wallet Services

Key in your cellphone number and ATM PIN

Choose the amount of money to withdraw.  Make sure that either your transaction has ended or that you press 'cancel' before leaving the ATM.

So, can you believe it!???  Wallet is sitting at home and you can “speak” to an ATM and get it to spit out some cash – Wow!  Now that’s a solution… but remember, it’s still easier not to leave your petrol card at home!

See here for more info: Send Money and eWallet
Click here for a step-by-step guide on how to Send Money from all FNB channels and how to receive money.

As an introductory offer, until the 18th July 2010, you can send and receive money FREE of bank charges.


Notes:
HTT is not affiliated to FNB in any way – just a happy client trying to share tips so that readers may benefit ;)
BTW, I haven’t actually tried to send money to myself – just had a nightmare about this the other day and thought up this idea for using this service.  Let me know if it is in fact possible to send money to yourself.


Update: Tue 04May2010: Confirmation via Twitter from http://twitter.com/Rbjacobs: The official FNB Guy:  “@HandyTechTipper The eWallet allows FNB customers to Send Money to anyone with a valid SA cellphone number < more http://bit.ly/dslc3c”

Investec fees go up from R175 to R250 per month... bye bye Investec Private Bank

From 1st Aug 2009 the monthly fees will go up. I think it's time (for me) to move to a lower fees bank - granted, the Investec service is very good, and there are lots of things bundled in, but I think I'm a low usage client (monthly count: Debit orders: less than 8, EFT payments: less than 10, Withdrawals: less than 5, Deposits less than 5)

Also, I'm not using a lot of the bundled in services and products.

I've looked at Capitec and FNB.

See here for Capitec's fees

See here for FNB's fees

See www.thinkmoney.co.za and www.bankmonitor.co.za for an extensive list of accounts comparison tools and calculators.

I like Capitec's fees, but there are too few Capitec ATMs and branches for me to be comfortable. This will push my fees up.

I like the FNB "Unlimited Option" - but it does have "limits".... but I will make an effort to get to know them.
So, for R89 per month, I can save a bit... ummm, that's R161 less per month, that's R1,932 per annum. Less the "noted" items below - I guess, I'll save R1,400 per annum (or R117 per month):

Things that I need to watch out for:

• Card replacement fee R55 - OK, noted... I haven't lost a card (yet)
• R50 for a bank guaranteed cheque - OK, noted
• R25 for a stop payment - OK, noted
• 85c per SMS notification - OK, noted
• International ATM withdrawal: R25 - OK, noted
• Debit interest rate: Investec Card is 10%; DiscoveryCard interest rate is 28.7%.
• No free access to airport lounge
• Balance alerts and payment notifications are charged for @ FNB
• Make sure I use FNB ATMs for deposits and withdrawals - OK, noted.
• FNB petrol card comes with built in AA roadside assistance :) - I need to verify this.
• Overdraft facility: @ FNB there's a monthly fee of R15.50 (estimated) - I won't take this.
• In-branch fees are high: this includes payments, withdrawals and deposits (rather use FNB ATMs)

See here for comments to MoneyWeb's article "Investec fees up 67% in three years" - interesting reading ;)

Vote in the MoneyWeb poll: Investec fees are: Extravagant, or Just right, or Low.

Come on Investec, focus on making your money from true banking business, and do not become like the other banks and rely on bank charges.

Let me know if I'm missing the boat - before I redirect my salary and debit orders to my FNB account!

Update on 14 July 2009:
FNB have just updated their Fees Calculator, click here to launch their fees calculator
I have used SnagIt in text capture mode to retrieve all my beneficiaries' banking details. I pasted them into a text file, then I can paste them into the new beneficiaries in FNB.
Open an FNB account: click here

Also, if you have an Investec HomeLoan that you want to keep (better interest rate maybe), then you can keep that open for a monthly service fee of R30.00