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They've created an inactivity fee of R35 for every 60 days you don't transact. As someone who funds their TFSA in a lump sum this won't do for me.

They've done the same with their ETF only account, and for their regular account they now require you to trade 3 times per month before they waive the monthly fee. That one used to be trade 5 times a year and pay no fees, then it was no fees AFTER your 5th trade per year, now it's 3 times per month.

I don't like companies that behave this way, I find it very dishonest. The least they could have done would be to grandfather the rule for current users and only apply it to newcomers. As such I have already sent in the form to move my TFSA to Easy Equities, goodbye ABSA.

EasyE is awesome!

I was under the impression that moves are free. You'll actually transfer positions to EE not cash.

Seems I was wrong, ABSA now wants to charge me R172.50 per ETF to move. Quite a cheek considering my motivation for moving is them changing their terms compared to what I signed up for.

Yeah GCR I'm going to try fight it. The terms they changed wasn't the application of the moving fee, as when I signed up moving wasn't possible, but it's the application of the inactivity fee which was only added on the 1st of April 2018. I'm going to request they either drop that or allow free moves to other providers. Failing that I'll take the fight to twitter.

So after my twitter ranting I got a call from one of their consultants. Basically he was saying that these things aren't profitable so they need to find ways to make people trade more.

I told him I could totally see how it wasn't profitable, the numbers are too small, but the TFSA could lead people into regular investment accounts which may have more profit. What they've effectively done now (and previously with their regular account) by repeatedly moving the goalposts is broken the trust I have in them.

What's to stop them in future from making it a R500 inactivity fee, or R10 000 inactivity fee and then a R50 000 moving fee. They've shown that they will do whatever they like to ensure higher profit, and as such I will now advise people against using their services.

I could also bypass the inactivity fee by selling and buying back a single ETF and it would cost me just R0.16 every 60 days, but without trust I will rather pay the R172.50 for my one ETF and move to EE who seem to be run by humans and not financial calculators.

Not my fault, TFSAs were earning ABSA just R66/year in fees if fully funded. Now they'll get at least R172.50 per person, so I've effectively tripled their income. The share should have gone through the roof 

Talking about the standard account.  As you say the TFSA is  free to move.

For those that are interested is R171 per counter - going up to R200 in May.

Hi, can you please clarify if moving a TFSA is free? My TFSA is currently with absa as well and I'll definitely be moving to EasyE, but can only do so next month (May)

I'm really upset with absa still over their new fee's and for me to pay R200 per ETF (i'm still a student) is ridiculous .
The only thing they said on twitter to me was ''were sorry to see you go'' , yeah whatever. I opened my TFSA with EE this week, waiting for my docs to be ficad.