Discovery Bank today released its inaugural “SAFx Rater”, a comparative analysis of features and benefits of forex accounts offered by major banks and forex providers in South Africa. With the recent strengthening of the rand against major currencies, there has been significant interest in opening foreign exchange accounts to take advantage of this. Discovery Bank has conducted an analysis to benchmark all the offerings available to retail consumers in the market.
The SAFx Rater reviewed the forex accounts available from Discovery Bank and four leading South African banks against the following seven distinctive elements that define a new generation forex account:
- Easy access and the ability to open an account in seconds.
- Seamless integration in the banking platform with full visibility of all accounts.
- The best real-time buy and sell rates 24/7.
- The ability to instantly transfer funds into foreign currency and back into rand.
- Full control to manage foreign currency allowances in real time.
- Competitive fee levels.
- Virtual cards with immediate transactional capabilities.
Hylton Kallner, CEO of Discovery Bank said,
“We looked at every element of what would make an account efficient, cost-effective and simple to open and use – from origination to transactions all the way through to tracking and reconciliations. In this market comparison of various forex accounts, only three banks in South Africa offer real-time forex rates in their app. We confirmed our rates to be among the best available across these and, in addition, meeting all seven metrics in the comparison, truly placing Discovery Bank’s forex accounts in a category of its own.”
Discovery Bank is the only bank to meet these seven distinctive criteria that define a new generation forex account
As a recent entrant into this market segment, Discovery Bank set out to create the first new generation forex account in South Africa. The results of the analysis, released today, indicated that while most banks’ forex offerings include some of the aspects of what a new generation forex account should offer, only Discovery Bank’s forex accounts met all the criteria included in this new analysis, at the lowest cost for clients. Since launching its forex capabilities in February, the Bank’s clients have already taken advantage of the functionality to open over 7 000 new forex accounts and made R50 million in deposits across multiple currencies.
