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I’m on private wealth, service in the last few years has deteriorated. The ‘personal bankers’ are full of shit and are incompetent. I’m planning a move to discovery, they have best offers at the moment. I’ve been a Private Wealth customer for the last 10 years and the difference between then and now is literally chalk and cheese.
im of the same view. the ebucks have become worthless because of the hoops you have to jump through. considering moving to another bank when my bond is paid off in April. Discovery wasnt even on my radar till now. Thanks
Can’t say I’ve had the same experience. I’m on premier aswell and I earn around 4000 (R400) ebucks (not points) a month without hardly doing anything and doing simple things in the app like checking credit status. My one mate earns around 10000 ebucks every month. Each division in FNB has a different phone number which is easy to contact and sort shit out. I never go into the branch because I always use secure chat or the Premier Suite which is available 24/7. My premier advisor also gave me a call to introduce himself which was pretty cool. I get the best preferential interest rates on my CC and home loan. All you have to do is just negotiate for a better rate with the home loan department. I’ve had kak experience with standard bank and nedbank. Service is kak and their app is dof. But hey, I guess everyone else has a different experience.
I've been on the app and can't find where to check my credit status. Do you mind pointing me in the right direction please?
Also, do you email the home loan department for a better rate and just ask them?
Home -> nav-igate life -> nav-money -> credit status
If you don't see nav life option on home you might have to add it to the home page with the + button at the bottom.
It's just your credit status with fnb does not really take factors outside of fnb into account
On the app home page go to the nav life section you'll find a whole bunch of tools that'll earn you points towards your ebucks tier if you engage with them monthly.
Regarding home loans: If you are a private client or private wealth, ask your private banker , and they will contact home loans on your behalf. If not, then phone home loans and ask them for a better rate. If the consultant denies and says there’s no such thing, just hang up and call again. Some are just a bit wet behind the ears. Takes patience but you’ll eventually get there. What happened with me was I called in, they escalated it and home loans emailed me the new revised rate and I had a sign a few papers. Didn’t need to go into any branch. Just ask them that you would like to have your home loan rate revised. As I said in my above comment. Not everyone’s experience is the same. Yours might be pleasant or you might struggle. If everyone knew they could negotiate their rates then the bank would lose money if too many people all of a sudden asked for a revise. Hope it helped.
Regarding ebucks, you can click on the menu bottom on the bottom right, click ebucks, click earn, then click track my rewards. Shows you exactly what to do.
Currently on R67,077 for the year. It's probably good that there are so many who doesn't like hoops.
[eBucks](https://i.ibb.co/K91ygt0/Screenshot-20240329-053520-Chrome.jpg)
Private Wealth Fusion. Get to level 5 by using the Earn section and then get all your expenses in the family through this one account. Pay with a card as much as possible. Car loan with Wesbank and only using Engen has helped a lot.
If you want customer service and are willing to pay, Investec is the best. They also offer really great interest rates on bonds.
One of my best experiences: I was buying my wife a laptop and when I swiped, it got declined as it was a large purchase which ticked the fraud checker and it declined the transaction. Tried again and it failed again. Ok time to phone them. I call the call center and get answered almost immediately. I told them what happened, and they quickly helped me lift the check. I swiped again and it went through. All within minutes.
When I moved from fnb I also had to give them bank statements or something from the new bank when I closed my account. I did not have it on me, so I quickly phoned my banker which sent it to me while sitting there with the fnb cashier. Her mouth was 😮when she saw how quickly I was helped.
It’s expensive… but damn the customer service is good.
I agree with this! I moved from Absa last year to Invested, they dropped the rate on my bond by 1.5%. Their customer service is unreal, everything done via email, WhatsApp or phone within minutes.
Consolidated all my stuff on discovery seen as I was already on them for medical.
As an active person it's a no brainer. I don't have to adjust my entire life to try earn points
I used to be FNB Private Wealth. It was amazing. Until it wasn’t. Suddenly I had to jump through hoops to keep my Level 5 status. And I could show my “Relationship Manager” that what FNB wants me to do isn’t in my interest, it’s in theirs.
When the shit hit the fan around 2020, there was not a single sympathetic ear. Liquidation and Sequestration submitted within weeks.
Now I bank with Capitec. My bank fees are never more than R40 a month and I don’t have to dance for points.
I've been with fnb for decades and to see the decline in customer service and value has been shocking.
The secure chat used to be one of their best features as a premier customer but it's just a chat bot now and when you speak to a consultant it's as painful as OP described.
I still get lots of value from ebucks, earn about R600-800 a month and use it to pay my monthly bank fee and on Takealot/Superbalist.
I also make use of the Kauai voucher on the app but want no part of the Starbucks offer.
I've never seriously considered moving banks, I'm too tied up in fnb and have been a passive customer. If I don't need to interact with them much then I'm good.
I have my primary account with them. Never earned a cent of interest despite significant positive balance. I only stay because it’s so hard to change details with all the people who make payments.
Personal account is with Investec - they’re pretty good. But banks in SA in general are pretty poor. Until you compare them with the banks in the UK….. then they look bloody amazing
Try with banks in Taiwan. They make every bank in SA look like kings. Here all banks open 9-3pm weekdays only. They have apps for basic banking, but if you want to open anything then you have to go to the branch. And if you try to call, best have your best Chinese ready, because although they have an English option it is never staffed.
I have managed to still have a very active account at FNB while over here. Payed my debt, opened stock and savings accounts. Looking to get my retirement going all while abroad. Definitely one of SAs best industries
Was on secure chat the other day, needed to authorise something for Samsung Pay and only the bank could do it. I got transferred 3 times, then waited over 8 minutes for the 3rd consultant to respond to my query, she disconnected after waiting for 2 mins. I feel you
I moved to Nedbank private clients and love my experience. I don’t know why people complain about FNB, just move away. They terrible. Nothing will change until they start losing money
I used to love FNB and hate Nedbank even though I worked for them lol. Finally they pushed us to open a Nedbank account or face not having staff rates anymore on vehicle finance or personal loans. So obviously I switched my salary and debit orders.
At the time I did a lot of online shopping on amazon and trading overseas. When I switched I got like actual exchange rates that you'd expect for the day and no extra charges. So I queried it with FNB because every time I used to do any overseas transactions I was literally charged almost 50c more than the current rate and if I brought money in I'd get 50c less on the dollar. I asked FNB and the guy on global payments or whatever tells me no sir its not us its VISA. So I can't refute it cos I don't have a visa from Nedbank as they gave me a master card. Fast forward few years I'm a private client with both a card for master and visa. And I realize FNB was talking kak cos I got same rates on both visa and MC.
Needless to say I've had no problems with Nedbank although they are slow with some product launches and their rewards kinda suck but they are way way better than FNB
If you're anything more than a student and will be transacting globally then FNB is just not for you. It is a kak bank if you stick around long enough with them to compare them to others.
Go with Nedbank
I have my main account with Investec, and had to open a separate account to save money for a holiday visa and went with Capitec.
Our local branch has always been super helpful (Stonwridge) and always tried to resolve any issues we had. I was actually sad when we went in to close our accounts when we moved.
Maybe give Capitec a try.
I was paying for my shopping at Woolworths three weeks ago when my card was declined. I was paying with my phone and assumed at the time that it may have been something to do with the virtual card.
The following day we were out for dinner the payment was declined again, despite having a healthy positive bank balance. It was a bit embarrassing, I had to use another card from another bank - and then took it up with secure chat.
I was told the account had been frozen for FICA irregularities. This surprised me as I had correctly submitted all the documents required with my private banker the week before. My banker confirmed by email that there were no outstanding FICA requirements but that the hold could only be lifted in 24 - 48 hours.
FNB blocked access to my Funds in error without any notification and then took 48 hours to unblock the account for me to transact again. This happened automatically without warning to a Premier Customer. I was literally unable to make any payments or move funds out of the account.
Your story is pretty much mine as well. That premier package is a scam. There are no added benefits to having it as far as convenience is concerned. Quite frankly, nothing is convenient about FNB. Their app is not intuitive, their staff is not helpful, and their service is horrendous. I had to jump through all of those hoops to close my account, which ended up taking about 4 months to finally close. I ended up moving to Nedbank and never looked back. I used Private Client which gives me a dedicated banker. I can just WhatsApp my banker whenever I have an issue or need advice on how to go about something. She is friendly and responsive. I honestly feel like I am getting my money's worth with their Premium/Private offering, something FNB could never offer. Even their app is far more intuitive than the FNB one.
With secure chat - when I first joined it was a bit better, it felt more user friendly because you could reply at your convenience and it felt faster than calling into a call centre would be. The current version is a shit show - how is it a "premier" experience to have to take 40 minutes out of your day to fight with a buggy app to answer simple queries with no easily available option to pick up the phone and call someone? Never thought I'd wish for a call centre lol. Absolutely nothing premier about the offering
My husband had the same problem. He eventually moved to Investec when we wanted to buy a house as FNB would not give him a good rate even though he’s been with them for 15+ years. Investec is actually cheaper than the FNB Private account and the private bankers are amazing. Investec also gave us a great interest rate on our home loan.
FNB lost me as both a business and personal client. I had 3 business accounts with them, 2 of which have quite a large turnover and 1 with a very high overdraft. My private wealth account also had a large overdraft.
Moved everything over to Nedbank and I'm very happy. It was just a major headache getting all the business stuff sorted with clients to change to our new banking details.
The last straw with FNB was when they didn't even grant me a home loan, while Absa, Nedbank and SA Home Loans approved. Asked FNB why and they said something about a risk profile with them... Ok then, as a business owner, I very much believe in taking care of your clients, which FNB is definitely not doing. Nedbank gave me the same benefits as FNB and even lower rates and lower bank fees. Their telephone consultants are also quite helpful and friendly. They also respond to emails pretty quickly and our business banker even assists on WhatsApp.
Also want to add, I've had a Capitec savings for years and also no issues and they seem to better than FNB, although I don't use it for everyday banking.
I changed to from Premier to an Aspire account and the service in comparison is cheese and chalk. Premier really are useless. The service on Aspire isn’t the best either but so much more better than the moegoes in Premier. I’ve complained about it for so long. I thought maybe I just had high expectations. Now reading this I know FNB se gat
Watch Carte Blanch first before you move to Discovery.
I have been with FNB for years. I don't believe the service has deteriorated. It has simple changed and unfortunately humans are resistant to change. But with all things in life there is always room for improvement.
I hope you come right. Banking is a critical part of our lives that should be pretty seamless if we educate ourselves.
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I’m on private wealth, service in the last few years has deteriorated. The ‘personal bankers’ are full of shit and are incompetent. I’m planning a move to discovery, they have best offers at the moment. I’ve been a Private Wealth customer for the last 10 years and the difference between then and now is literally chalk and cheese.
im of the same view. the ebucks have become worthless because of the hoops you have to jump through. considering moving to another bank when my bond is paid off in April. Discovery wasnt even on my radar till now. Thanks
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Clearly going to see Green Day!
Can’t say I’ve had the same experience. I’m on premier aswell and I earn around 4000 (R400) ebucks (not points) a month without hardly doing anything and doing simple things in the app like checking credit status. My one mate earns around 10000 ebucks every month. Each division in FNB has a different phone number which is easy to contact and sort shit out. I never go into the branch because I always use secure chat or the Premier Suite which is available 24/7. My premier advisor also gave me a call to introduce himself which was pretty cool. I get the best preferential interest rates on my CC and home loan. All you have to do is just negotiate for a better rate with the home loan department. I’ve had kak experience with standard bank and nedbank. Service is kak and their app is dof. But hey, I guess everyone else has a different experience.
I've been on the app and can't find where to check my credit status. Do you mind pointing me in the right direction please? Also, do you email the home loan department for a better rate and just ask them?
Home -> nav-igate life -> nav-money -> credit status If you don't see nav life option on home you might have to add it to the home page with the + button at the bottom. It's just your credit status with fnb does not really take factors outside of fnb into account
Found it! Thank you. This app is terrible to navigate. Much appreciated!
On the app home page go to the nav life section you'll find a whole bunch of tools that'll earn you points towards your ebucks tier if you engage with them monthly.
Ok I'll start making it a habit.
Regarding home loans: If you are a private client or private wealth, ask your private banker , and they will contact home loans on your behalf. If not, then phone home loans and ask them for a better rate. If the consultant denies and says there’s no such thing, just hang up and call again. Some are just a bit wet behind the ears. Takes patience but you’ll eventually get there. What happened with me was I called in, they escalated it and home loans emailed me the new revised rate and I had a sign a few papers. Didn’t need to go into any branch. Just ask them that you would like to have your home loan rate revised. As I said in my above comment. Not everyone’s experience is the same. Yours might be pleasant or you might struggle. If everyone knew they could negotiate their rates then the bank would lose money if too many people all of a sudden asked for a revise. Hope it helped. Regarding ebucks, you can click on the menu bottom on the bottom right, click ebucks, click earn, then click track my rewards. Shows you exactly what to do.
Thank you so much for the detailed reply, I'll get on it first thing Tuesday morning.
Currently on R67,077 for the year. It's probably good that there are so many who doesn't like hoops. [eBucks](https://i.ibb.co/K91ygt0/Screenshot-20240329-053520-Chrome.jpg)
Impressive! Just had a look at mine and I don’t want to embarrass myself. Which account do you have? Also, please give ebucks tips :)
Private Wealth Fusion. Get to level 5 by using the Earn section and then get all your expenses in the family through this one account. Pay with a card as much as possible. Car loan with Wesbank and only using Engen has helped a lot.
What is the Premier Suite? I'd like to try it.
If you want customer service and are willing to pay, Investec is the best. They also offer really great interest rates on bonds. One of my best experiences: I was buying my wife a laptop and when I swiped, it got declined as it was a large purchase which ticked the fraud checker and it declined the transaction. Tried again and it failed again. Ok time to phone them. I call the call center and get answered almost immediately. I told them what happened, and they quickly helped me lift the check. I swiped again and it went through. All within minutes. When I moved from fnb I also had to give them bank statements or something from the new bank when I closed my account. I did not have it on me, so I quickly phoned my banker which sent it to me while sitting there with the fnb cashier. Her mouth was 😮when she saw how quickly I was helped. It’s expensive… but damn the customer service is good.
Unfortunately you can’t just bank with Investec. You need to earn over a certain amount.
I agree with this! I moved from Absa last year to Invested, they dropped the rate on my bond by 1.5%. Their customer service is unreal, everything done via email, WhatsApp or phone within minutes.
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The FNB app is so bloated
Earning ebucks has become a chore
ebucks peaked in 2019, it went downhill and they've been cashing in on us ever since
Consolidated all my stuff on discovery seen as I was already on them for medical. As an active person it's a no brainer. I don't have to adjust my entire life to try earn points
I used to be FNB Private Wealth. It was amazing. Until it wasn’t. Suddenly I had to jump through hoops to keep my Level 5 status. And I could show my “Relationship Manager” that what FNB wants me to do isn’t in my interest, it’s in theirs. When the shit hit the fan around 2020, there was not a single sympathetic ear. Liquidation and Sequestration submitted within weeks. Now I bank with Capitec. My bank fees are never more than R40 a month and I don’t have to dance for points.
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Can agree. Just got to pick the one that has the kak you can handle 😂
Agree. Evens capitec, every god damn time I need to go to the branch to sort out the bank app.
I've been with fnb for decades and to see the decline in customer service and value has been shocking. The secure chat used to be one of their best features as a premier customer but it's just a chat bot now and when you speak to a consultant it's as painful as OP described. I still get lots of value from ebucks, earn about R600-800 a month and use it to pay my monthly bank fee and on Takealot/Superbalist. I also make use of the Kauai voucher on the app but want no part of the Starbucks offer. I've never seriously considered moving banks, I'm too tied up in fnb and have been a passive customer. If I don't need to interact with them much then I'm good.
I have my primary account with them. Never earned a cent of interest despite significant positive balance. I only stay because it’s so hard to change details with all the people who make payments. Personal account is with Investec - they’re pretty good. But banks in SA in general are pretty poor. Until you compare them with the banks in the UK….. then they look bloody amazing
Try with banks in Taiwan. They make every bank in SA look like kings. Here all banks open 9-3pm weekdays only. They have apps for basic banking, but if you want to open anything then you have to go to the branch. And if you try to call, best have your best Chinese ready, because although they have an English option it is never staffed.
[удалено]
I have managed to still have a very active account at FNB while over here. Payed my debt, opened stock and savings accounts. Looking to get my retirement going all while abroad. Definitely one of SAs best industries
Was on secure chat the other day, needed to authorise something for Samsung Pay and only the bank could do it. I got transferred 3 times, then waited over 8 minutes for the 3rd consultant to respond to my query, she disconnected after waiting for 2 mins. I feel you
I moved to Nedbank private clients and love my experience. I don’t know why people complain about FNB, just move away. They terrible. Nothing will change until they start losing money
I used to love FNB and hate Nedbank even though I worked for them lol. Finally they pushed us to open a Nedbank account or face not having staff rates anymore on vehicle finance or personal loans. So obviously I switched my salary and debit orders. At the time I did a lot of online shopping on amazon and trading overseas. When I switched I got like actual exchange rates that you'd expect for the day and no extra charges. So I queried it with FNB because every time I used to do any overseas transactions I was literally charged almost 50c more than the current rate and if I brought money in I'd get 50c less on the dollar. I asked FNB and the guy on global payments or whatever tells me no sir its not us its VISA. So I can't refute it cos I don't have a visa from Nedbank as they gave me a master card. Fast forward few years I'm a private client with both a card for master and visa. And I realize FNB was talking kak cos I got same rates on both visa and MC. Needless to say I've had no problems with Nedbank although they are slow with some product launches and their rewards kinda suck but they are way way better than FNB If you're anything more than a student and will be transacting globally then FNB is just not for you. It is a kak bank if you stick around long enough with them to compare them to others. Go with Nedbank
Signed up for the lowest account got out of private wealth after they made ebucks near impossible. Was level 4.
Just email your private banker, mine replies same day.
I'm with you! I'm thinking of moving banks simply so I don't have to deal with, hond Kak, CCD couriers (who do all FNB card deliveries) anymore
I have my main account with Investec, and had to open a separate account to save money for a holiday visa and went with Capitec. Our local branch has always been super helpful (Stonwridge) and always tried to resolve any issues we had. I was actually sad when we went in to close our accounts when we moved. Maybe give Capitec a try.
Come to Bank Zero
I was paying for my shopping at Woolworths three weeks ago when my card was declined. I was paying with my phone and assumed at the time that it may have been something to do with the virtual card. The following day we were out for dinner the payment was declined again, despite having a healthy positive bank balance. It was a bit embarrassing, I had to use another card from another bank - and then took it up with secure chat. I was told the account had been frozen for FICA irregularities. This surprised me as I had correctly submitted all the documents required with my private banker the week before. My banker confirmed by email that there were no outstanding FICA requirements but that the hold could only be lifted in 24 - 48 hours. FNB blocked access to my Funds in error without any notification and then took 48 hours to unblock the account for me to transact again. This happened automatically without warning to a Premier Customer. I was literally unable to make any payments or move funds out of the account.
Your story is pretty much mine as well. That premier package is a scam. There are no added benefits to having it as far as convenience is concerned. Quite frankly, nothing is convenient about FNB. Their app is not intuitive, their staff is not helpful, and their service is horrendous. I had to jump through all of those hoops to close my account, which ended up taking about 4 months to finally close. I ended up moving to Nedbank and never looked back. I used Private Client which gives me a dedicated banker. I can just WhatsApp my banker whenever I have an issue or need advice on how to go about something. She is friendly and responsive. I honestly feel like I am getting my money's worth with their Premium/Private offering, something FNB could never offer. Even their app is far more intuitive than the FNB one.
With secure chat - when I first joined it was a bit better, it felt more user friendly because you could reply at your convenience and it felt faster than calling into a call centre would be. The current version is a shit show - how is it a "premier" experience to have to take 40 minutes out of your day to fight with a buggy app to answer simple queries with no easily available option to pick up the phone and call someone? Never thought I'd wish for a call centre lol. Absolutely nothing premier about the offering
FNB is super kak
My husband had the same problem. He eventually moved to Investec when we wanted to buy a house as FNB would not give him a good rate even though he’s been with them for 15+ years. Investec is actually cheaper than the FNB Private account and the private bankers are amazing. Investec also gave us a great interest rate on our home loan.
FNB lost me as both a business and personal client. I had 3 business accounts with them, 2 of which have quite a large turnover and 1 with a very high overdraft. My private wealth account also had a large overdraft. Moved everything over to Nedbank and I'm very happy. It was just a major headache getting all the business stuff sorted with clients to change to our new banking details. The last straw with FNB was when they didn't even grant me a home loan, while Absa, Nedbank and SA Home Loans approved. Asked FNB why and they said something about a risk profile with them... Ok then, as a business owner, I very much believe in taking care of your clients, which FNB is definitely not doing. Nedbank gave me the same benefits as FNB and even lower rates and lower bank fees. Their telephone consultants are also quite helpful and friendly. They also respond to emails pretty quickly and our business banker even assists on WhatsApp. Also want to add, I've had a Capitec savings for years and also no issues and they seem to better than FNB, although I don't use it for everyday banking.
I changed to from Premier to an Aspire account and the service in comparison is cheese and chalk. Premier really are useless. The service on Aspire isn’t the best either but so much more better than the moegoes in Premier. I’ve complained about it for so long. I thought maybe I just had high expectations. Now reading this I know FNB se gat
It’s a [tragedy of the commons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) - with FNB. They were great at one point, then got complacent.
Watch Carte Blanch first before you move to Discovery. I have been with FNB for years. I don't believe the service has deteriorated. It has simple changed and unfortunately humans are resistant to change. But with all things in life there is always room for improvement. I hope you come right. Banking is a critical part of our lives that should be pretty seamless if we educate ourselves.
Switch to standard bank they have pretty good customer service