We've partnered with EasyEquities, making it easy for our clients to invest in shares.
The drop in the repo rate this year has certainly offered some relief on home loans, car repayments and personal loans. Unfortunately, there’s a flip side: less interest on your savings in line with the interest rate drop.
The good news, though, is that there is another simple and affordable way to grow your money.
As a Capitec client using our new banking app, you’ll receive a 20% discount on brokerage fees on the EasyEquities platform with access to both South African and USA markets.
The less you pay for fees the more money you have to invest. Just imagine what a fee of R80 will add up to over 10, 20 or 30 years.
In addition to low brokerage fees, there’s no minimum investment required. You could start investing today with as little as R5! You’ll also automatically get a tax-free savings account (TFSA) when you sign up for an EasyEquities account. Just remember, although you’re limited to a maximum investment of R36 000 a year in a TFSA, you won’t be taxed on any of the money you make.
You might be wary of investing your hard-earned money on the stock market but one of the benefits on the new Capitec banking app is access to an EasyEquities’ demo account that lets you practice.
How does it work? It’s simple. As a new user, you’ll be given access to a demo account with a balance of R100 000. You can then play around on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and see how markets are performing while monitoring your profits and losses without the risk of losing any real money. Keen to dabble on the US markets? You’ll receive US$10 000 to practice investing on the American stock exchange.
Once you feel comfortable with the stock markets and understand how they work, you can start using your own money to invest for real.
We often use the words saving and investing interchangeably, but it’s important to understand that there is a difference.
When you save, you’re putting money away for a rainy day or to pay for an expensive item or even an experience, like a holiday. Usually you’d use a savings account that offers you quick access to your money with no risk that it might shrink in value. Money in a savings account will only grow at the interest rate as prescribed by the South African Reserve Bank, which is called the repo rate. Right now, this is barely equal to the inflation rate, which means your money is unlikely to grow.
With an investment, on the other hand, you’re using your money to buy assets, such as property or shares (equity) in a company. It comes with the promise of making money in the long term but also carries the risk of losing money if the company/asset that you had bought shares in performs poorly.
However, when you invest, with the view of staying invested for a long time, it can allow you to benefit from compound interest – if you leave the interest you’ve earned in the account.
Take the Capitec share price as an example. If you had bought shares when they were just R15, the value of each of those shares would be more than R800 today. This is because the bank has done well and made a profit.
When this happens, companies normally take a percentage of that profit and reinvest it in the business, but some companies also take some of the profit and reward shareholders for their investment. If you’re a shareholder, you could then receive a dividend – your share of that profit – that you can use to buy more shares in the company to grow your investment, that is, your money.
Move to Capitec and get the new banking app. It gives you access to investing in shares through EasyEquities. Invest as little as R5 with no minimum amounts. Investing made simple, convenient and affordable.
