Cardless vs card-based cash withdrawals - a costly convenience?

Have you ever arrived at an ATM to find a long queue, awaited your turn, and only then realised that you’ve left your card in your car? Or, having opened your wallet to pay your domestic worker, suddenly remembered that you spent the last of your cash?

With the advent of cardless cash withdrawal, these problems, along with others, may soon be a thing of the past. In some cases, however, there is a costly twist.

We compared the cost of making cardless cash withdrawals to standard cash withdrawals across a variety of accounts from some of South Africa’s leading banks. Read on to see the results.

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The cost of cardless cash withdrawals

For FNB customers, cardless cash withdrawal costs differ by account. For instance, there is no fee for an FNBy account, but a fee of R2.20 per R100 when using the Premier Current account.

The Absa Transact account has a flat fee of R8 per R1,000 for cardless cash withdrawals, otherwise known as CashSend. However, all other Absa personal accounts have no fee.

Nedbank offers cardless cash withdrawals as part of its Send-iMali product.

“The Send-iMali product allows Nedbank customers to transfer or send money to anyone that has a valid South African cell number, including themselves,” explains Vanesha Palani, head of Transactional, Forex and Investments at Nedbank.

“The money is instantly available as cash from any Nedbank ATM as a cardless withdrawal. This money-send capability is available on all of our digital channels.”

The fees are the same for all Nedbank accounts, however, there are two pricing brackets. Withdrawals of R100 to R1,000 have a flat fee of R8.50, and withdrawals of R1,001 to R2,500 incur a flat fee of R14.

Standard Bank offers a cardless cash withdrawal service called InstantMoney. Wendy Pienaar, spokesperson for Standard Bank, explains.

“It costs R9.95 to send an InstantMoney voucher. However, there are no charges for cashing out the money.

“The consumer needs to remember that there is a daily limit of R5,000 and a monthly limit of R25,000.”

A comparison of different banks card withdrawal fees 

As is evident from the above, most banks offer a cash-send option that allows the recipient to withdraw cash for free. Fees solely reside with the person who is depositing the money. This service is helpful if you’re sending money to someone who doesn’t have an account. But what if you forgot your card and would like to withdraw money from your account? 

If you don’t have your card, you can still send yourself a voucher, but some banks like FNB and Nedbank offer a “get cash” service where you can withdraw money from your account using your banking app. All you need to do is to go to your app and select the account from which you want to withdraw and follow the instructions on the app.  

As seen in the table below, most banks offer free cardless cash withdrawals, but some have conditions attached. With FNB’s Easy Account, for example, you can make one withdrawal for free for each payment received. After four payments, you’ll pay R11.

In order to save on bank charges, you must calculate the overall cost of your account including the monthly fees. Some accounts have higher maintenance fees and others have higher withdrawal fees.

Safety is another consideration. In a world where cards can be cloned and financial information is vulnerable, cardless cash withdrawals should arguably be encouraged within the banking industry. By withdrawing money from an ATM without a card, you are reducing the possibility of fraud at the ATM, where cards can be cloned or swapped without you being the wiser until it is too late. Cardless cash withdrawals are therefore a safer option.

The results 

Another issue worth noting is that not many people are aware that cardless cash withdrawals are an option for them, or how they work. Perhaps more focus should be placed on educating consumers about the facilities available to them.