With a service fee on every cheque, an escalating penalty for depositing cash, a payment for other people's bounced cheques in your account, and charges for cash withdrawals at Saswitch ATMs, for print-outs of statements, for credit-card subscriptions, for fuel transactions and for interest on everything else you can think of, I naturally support the Competition Commission's inquiry into the cost of banking in South Africa.

A qualified attorney, Schoeman added that many of his clients were paying banks "excessive" interest rates, and one in particular now had an R80 000 debt on a loan that had started as R15 000.

He added that a client's salary of R1 600 a month was recently depleted by R225 in bank charges for each of three debit orders that could not be met because his employer had paid his salary late.

Bank charges could increase, a legal expert has warned on the eve of a probe into banks by the Competition Commission.

Asked what they expected from the pending investigation, various consumer representatives and legal and financial experts hoped banks would be forced to lower charges suspected of being the highest in the world.

But University of Pretoria law professor Nick Grové warned that credit legislation now being considered might result in higher bank fees.

The cost implications of the new Consumer Credit Bill about to be tabled in parliament had to be considered, said Grové.

'Because in the end, the cost of protection is borne by all consumers as a body'
"One must be very careful of 'feel good' legislation because it comes at a price. It is going to be very expensive for banks to comply with the provisions of the bill."

The compliance cost of various proposed measures in the bill had to be weighed up against the consumer protection it sought to offer to individuals, "because in the end, the cost of protection is borne by all consumers as a body.

an escalating penalty for depositing cash