If you’ve ever tried comparing savings rates across SA banks you’ll know what a mission it is, every bank has a different website, different terminology, and half the time the rate they advertise isn’t the one you actually get.
Call / access accounts — your money is available immediately
7-day and 32-day notice deposits — slightly better rates in exchange for giving notice before withdrawing
12-month and 60-month fixed deposits — the highest rates for money you can lock away
Money market unit trusts — Allan Gray, Sygnia, Coronation, Sanlam SIM, and Old Mutual
All rates are shown as EAR (Effective Annual Rate) so you’re comparing apples with apples, none of that “nominal rate compounded monthly” confusion. You can also plug in an amount to see what your actual annual rand return would be.
A few things worth knowing:
GoTyme Bank’s 10% GoalSave rate looks amazing, but it requires a 10-day notice and you can’t make withdrawals if you want the full bonus rate, it’s not a true call account
Money market unit trusts are not covered by the Deposit Insurance Scheme (which protects bank deposits up to R100k per depositor), though capital loss is extremely rare
Rates are checked and updated automatically, but always verify the final rate directly with the bank before committing
Happy to hear if anyone spots something that looks off, or if there’s a bank or fund I’ve missed.
Rates are estimates and for comparison purposes only. Not financial advice.
The rates here are all before tax, and many people do not realise that the interest your savings earn is taxable. So once you have found a rate that suits you, you can now press the new “See what you actually keep after tax” button just under the results. It carries your amount and the rate you are looking at straight across to our new savings interest tax calculator, so there is nothing to retype.
The calculator applies the yearly interest exemption, R23,800 if you are under 65 and R34,500 from age 65, along with your own tax rate, then shows the real return you keep after tax and how it compounds over the years. The pleasant surprise for a lot of savers is that the exemption covers the interest on roughly R297,500 at 8 percent, so plenty of people pay no tax on it at all.
That GoTyme point is something more people need to understand before they chase the headline number. A rate that looks 2% better than everyone else usually has strings attached, and “you can’t withdraw during the notice period” is a very big string if an emergency hits.
Investec sent through an update to their cash investment fee schedule, effective 1 August 2026. It is not a change to the advertised rates you see in the tool, but it does matter if you are looking at one of their fixed deposits, because it changes what breaking the deposit early costs you.
From 1 August, the early withdrawal fee is 0.5% of the amount you withdraw, plus 1% for every year still left on the term, worked out pro rata, subject to a minimum fee of R750. So the earlier you break a longer fixed deposit, the more it costs, which makes sense, but it is worth knowing before you lock money away for 60 months on the assumption you will not need it back sooner.
A few of the other ad hoc fees change on the same date. A manual payment (mostly international payments, or paying a preloaded beneficiary outside the app) goes to R750. Faster Payments are R10 for amounts of R3,000 or below and R40 above that. Cash backed guarantee fees move too, a standard one is now R1,650 with a R900 renewal fee.
None of this changes the rates in the tool itself, it only matters once you are actually opening or managing one of these accounts. Worth reading the fine print if a fixed deposit is on your radar.
The Investec early withdrawal fee change is a good example of why I always tell people to read the notice/lock in terms as carefully as the rate itself. A 0.5% plus 1% per year remaining fee can wipe out most of the extra interest you were chasing if life happens and you need that cash before term.
On the tax side, I like that you built the after tax handoff, that’s the bit most comparison tools skip completely. What I’d add is a note about interest earned inside a TFSA versus a normal call account, because people often don’t realise their R36k annual TFSA allowance can sit in some of these same banks’ fixed deposits and earn completely tax free interest instead. Might be worth a toggle or at least a callout under the results, since it changes the “actual keep” number quite a lot for anyone still under their contribution limit.
Also curious how you’re sourcing the rate updates going forward, doing this manually per bank announcement is going to become a maintenance headache fast once more banks start emailing through fee schedule changes like Investec did.