Contends it can recover three months of mischarged fees, but provides no clear basis for being able to do so.
Picture: Gallo Images/ Papi Moake
Later this month, Nedbank will debit affected account holders to recover fees that were incorrectly collected between February and May.
In communication sent to customers in July, it said that “due to a system, the fees collected on your external debit orders between 16 February 2026 and 12 May 2026 were calculated incorrectly”.
“We will debit your account with the outstanding difference … on 17 August 2026 . We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Moneyweb has seen communication to customers with various amounts, but these tend to be in the tens of rands.
And because this issue was related to a single type of transaction, the impact would be entirely dependent on how many external (non-Nedbank) debit orders that customer has, as well as their account type.
‘Ongoing enhancements’ blip
Nedbank confirms that “the issue was isolated to the billing of certain external debit order collection fees following a system upgrade that formed part of ongoing enhancements to our banking platform”.
“As a result of the billing error, some clients were undercharged, rather than overcharged, for the affected transactions. The issue did not impact the processing of debit orders or clients’ funds beyond the incorrect fee being applied.”
It adds that “once the issue was identified, Nedbank implemented the necessary system changes to correct the billing, communicated with affected clients, and has since closed the matter”.
“In line with Nedbank’s Pricing Guide and Conduct Rules, the bank may only recover missed fees for a maximum period of three months,” it said.
“Any fee recoveries were therefore limited to this period and undertaken in accordance with these rules.”
Accounts likely to be affected
The bank would not be drawn on exactly when it identified the error, how many clients were affected, or the total quantum of the error.
However, on its MiGoals Plus (R99 a month) and MiGoals Premium (R250 a month), all external and internal debit orders are bundled as part of the monthly account fee.
This means that of the accounts currently on sale, the only affected ones would be the entry-level MiGoals account (R8 a month), as well as the MyPocket and club/stokvel ones.
There are older legacy accounts that also charge for debit orders, including Pay-as-you-use, Nedbank4Me, Unlocked.me, Optimum, Money Market Investment, N-5000, current, Ke Yona Bundle, Transactor, Go Banking, Savings Deposit, Market Trader, Accumulator and Grow accounts.
The charges across all these accounts (both current and legacy) depend on the exact account, with fees of R4 (for both internal and external), R5 or R6 (for internal) or R12 (for external).
In some cases, these fees are unchanged from those levied in 2025, while others have been altered (the external fee on some decreased from R13 to R12).
Basis for this recovery?
Moneyweb has reviewed Nedbank’s pricing guides and terms and conditions for the ‘transactional current account’ (which presumably applies to all its various transactional products (both current and legacy) and could find no reference to a so-called ‘look-back’ window that would enable it to recover a fee that it failed to charge.
Those T&Cs say simply that “we will charge fees in line with the prevailing pricing schedule, or as agreed with you”, that “you must pay all fees when they become due to us”, that “we are entitled, at our reasonable discretion, to vary any fees, or the items attracting fees” and that “we will give you reasonable notice before fees, or items that attract fees, change”.
Moneyweb could also not establish any publicly available document from the bank labelled as ‘Conduct Rules’.
This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.
