“This BIDPA Briefing assesses the cost of banking in Botswana. It presents a range of comparative costs across Botswana’s commercial banks in 2014. This exercise involves examining a basic current/cheque account and the charges imposed by the commercial banks. Comparison is also made of selected bank charges on which information was obtainable between banks in Botswana and those in South Africa, Namibia and Mauritius. One of the conclusions was that Bank charges differ from one bank to the other; in some cases, the differences are vast. Punitive charges and charges for processing loans and overdrafts are generally very high also, which suggests that it may be worth the central bank’s consideration to set the maximum values charged for such services such as loan administration or processing fees and penalties for dishonoured cheques and unpaid debit orders. In other jurisdictions such as South Africa, capping charges for certain services has been implemented.”
