Tinashe Sibanda

Cash envelopes, vouchers to your phone, a cousin's account — South Africans without bank accounts get paid in workarounds, and every workaround has a price. Here are all four routes honestly compared, and the one that ends the problem for good.

Monthly fees, ATM fees, deposit fees, "immediate payment" premiums, SMS charges — South African bank statements hide a dozen different fee types. Here's what each one means, how to find yours, and how to compare any two fee tables in ten minutes.

No green ID? A foreign passport, a current Section 22 asylum permit or a refugee permit opens a fully legal account in South Africa in about 3 minutes — no proof of address, no payslip, no work permit, no branch. Which documents work, why banks say no, and what to do if the check fails.