Start saving with a top-up bond

With South Africa’s high cost of living making it difficult for people to get through the month, let alone save money, the government has launched a top-up bond to help low-income citizens invest the money they have and save over a long term.

National Treasury launched the RSA Retail Savings Top-up Bond on 1 April 2022 to enable low-income citizens to access investment opportunities that they couldn’t afford in the past.

While a big lump sum of money is usually required when opening an investment, this is not the case with the new top-up bond. Anyone with R500 can invest, start saving money and grow their balance with the interest (currently 9.25%) they will receive.

While most other investments do not allow people to add funds to their current investment, the RSA Retail Savings Top-up Bond does. As long as the amount is R100 or more, you can add to your investment at any time over the three-year investment period.

To help build and maintain a culture of saving in South Africa, National Treasury launched

RSA Retail Savings Bonds in 2004. While they soon became a popular way for people to save money over the long term, they did not appeal to youth or low-income households who didn’t have a lump sum to invest.

This challenge became even harder as a result of COVID-19, as people had even less to invest. As a result, those who tried to save did so via stokvels, fixed deposit savings accounts and good old-fashioned penny-pinching.

With many people part of stokvels, government decided to allow informal groups, such as stokvels, to place their pooled savings into a top-up bond, and thus earn interest on their money.

The top-up bond is also more flexible, as investors can switch their top-up bond to a fixed rate or inflation-linked bond if they want to.

Since the launch in April 2022, 932 people have invested in the government’s new top-up bond. Together, the value of their investments is
R24.1 million.

Information supplied by RSA Retail Savings Bonds

For more information or to invest, call 012 315 5888 or visit RSA Retail Saving Bonds’ website at https://secure.rsaretailbonds.gov.za. Informal groups can download the relevant forms from the website. Alternatively, send your questions to queries@rsaretailbonds.gov.za.