What to Look for When Opening a Bank Account

Knowing the type of account you should open is very crucial because getting an account that doesn’t align with your needs might lead to terrible regrets. I remember signing up for a bank account which would later lead to financial mistakes that I regretted. Knowing the kind of bank account you need is just as important as knowing which bank you will be using. However, this article focuses on the key things you should look for when signing up for a new bank account. It does not, however, touch on the importance of choosing the right bank. Hopefully, I will publish an article on that soon.

There are many things to look for when opening a bank account, but I will only speak about the most important ones, which are monthly account fees, ATM withdrawal fees, digital banking, transfer fees, cash deposit fees, branch and ATM availability, and customer service. These are very important things to look into, and information about them for any bank can be accessed on the internet.

There are four major banks in our country: FNB Lesotho, Lesotho PostBank, Nedbank Lesotho and Standard Lesotho Bank, and each of them has its annual price guide available on the internet. A quick Google search using keywords such as “2026 price guide for (bank’s name)” can lead you to the relevant documents. For example, searching “2026 price guide for FNB Lesotho” will lead you to search results containing PDF files with FNB Lesotho’s recent price guides. Before opening a bank account, you can search through the price guides of all four banks and compare their charges.

What do you need the account for?

Knowing what you need the account for is the most important thing, and this will basically guide you towards choosing a good account. There are many different reasons why people need bank accounts, such as receiving a salary, receiving a monthly allowance, saving, sending and receiving money, making purchases online, and many more. Regardless of the reason you will need the account for, it is important to have a source of income because bank accounts are structured according to the amount of money one will be receiving per month. It is therefore important to give the person who will be helping you the correct amount or an estimated amount.

The first mistake I made when opening my first account was telling the person who was helping me that I would be receiving M2,500 per month. That was false because I did not have an income. I only believed I would be making that much because I had just begun trading forex, and this led to me encountering fees that I could not manage because the account was meant for people who received M2,500 or more per month. Had I known this, I would have gotten an account that suited me.

Almost all bank accounts charge monthly fees, regardless of whether they are being used or not, and the monthly fee for the account I had was M65, while a lower-tier account had a fee of around M20. So, in reality, I wasted a lot of money on fees. There is an account that banks offer which has close to zero fees, and that is the Bothebelele account. It is good in theory, but once you scrutinize it, you might realize that it has quite a few limitations. It is therefore important to also be aware of those limitations, even when an account sounds affordable.

The important thing is to know how much you will be receiving each month.

Banking Fees

Each bank account has different fees. Some accounts have high fees while others have low fees, but high fees do not necessarily guarantee that an account is better. They may, however, come with certain perks. Whether an account is good for you depends on your needs.

There are many types of banking fees, such as monthly account fees, ATM withdrawal fees, transfer fees and other service fees. The fees you should look out for are monthly fees, ATM withdrawal fees, cash deposit fees and transfer fees because these are some of the most common transactions. In a month, you are most likely to withdraw money, deposit money and send money to someone, so it is important to know how much you will be spending on these transactions.

Accounts offered to employees can be different from accounts offered to students, so be aware of the differences.

Digital Banking

It is important to always have access to your bank account from your phone, either through the app or USSD. More importantly, it is better to have access to both because when you run out of data, you can easily use USSD. The app usually has more features than USSD, so it is more advisable to use it when you have access to data.

The features offered by each bank are also important. I have been loyal to one bank, but at one point in my life, I wanted to have access to all the banks in Lesotho, so I opened a Standard Lesotho Bank account and got to experience its services. One feature I liked was the ability to move money from my bank account to either M-Pesa or EcoCash. That feature saved me from a lot of queues because I would literally see a long queue at an ATM and decide to transfer money to my M-Pesa account and then withdraw from an M-Pesa agent.

Branch and ATM availability

Be aware of the availability of places where you can withdraw or deposit money around you, and also whether the branch is easily accessible to you. I used FNB Lesotho throughout my life, and I had challenges using it when I was at school in Roma because they did not have a branch there while other banks did.

Another challenge I had was depositing and withdrawing money from my account because they had only one ATM that allowed withdrawals, and it would usually run out of money. There were many instances when I would almost die of hunger because I could not withdraw money from my bank account because the ATM was out of service. So, be aware of the availability of branches and ATMs around you.

Even though I had challenges with FNB Lesotho, I cannot deny that there were certain perks.

Customer Service

Customer service is another important thing to consider when opening a bank account. You might not think much about customer service when everything is working well, but you will appreciate having good customer service when something goes wrong with your account. There might be a time when your card gets lost, your account has a problem, a transaction does not go through, or money is deducted from your account and you do not know why. In such situations, you need to know that you can easily get help from your bank.

It is therefore important to know how you can contact your bank when you have a problem. Find out whether they have a call centre, WhatsApp, email, social media or branches where you can speak to someone directly. It is also important to know how quickly they respond and whether they are actually able to resolve problems. Having an account with a bank that is difficult to reach when you need help can become frustrating, regardless of how good the account might otherwise be.

You should also know what to do if your card is lost or stolen and whether you can immediately block it through the banking app or by contacting the bank. These are things you might not think about when opening an account, but knowing them beforehand can save you a lot of trouble when something eventually goes wrong.