You’ll notice that you’ve got a few different EasyEquities Accounts that you can use to invest with. And all of them are part of the no minimum amounts, no platform fees, fractional share investing club!
Your ZAR Account is where you’ll invest in local shares and ETFs.
Your Tax Free Savings Account allows you to invest up to R36 000 a year tax free.
Your US Dollar Account gives you access to shares that are listed in America. Hello Apple, Amazon and Facebook!
Your ZAR and USD Demo accounts - these contain play-play money for you to practice with. Hopefully you've taken these for a spin already!
Here's a little more detail on each of them:
Your ZAR account
ZAR stands for South African Rands. This is the account where you’ll invest in local shares and ETFs. Read more about Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) here.
Your TFSA account
TFSA stands for Tax Free Savings Account. A Tax Free Savings Account allows you to invest up to R500 000 without paying any tax on the profit you make on your investment, the dividends you receive, or the interest you might earn on cash. There are a couple of restrictions though:
You can only invest up to R36 000 a year in this account.
You can only invest in Collective Investment Schemes (ETFs fall under this category btw) and not single shares.
If you exceed the annual (36 000) and lifetime (R500 000) limits, SARS will klap you with penalties - 40% on the excess. Ouch. Luckily EasyEquities will prevent you from over contributing in the TFSA you hold with us, however we can’t monitor TFSA contributions you make elsewhere.
Any amount that you withdraw from your account will count towards your annual and lifetime limit. If you have deposited R 36 000 and withdraw R 15 000 in the same year, you cannot deposit any more funds as you have already used your R 36 000 deposit allocation. It’s all about a deposit limit, so withdraw funds wisely!
Watch our video on TFSAs here.
Your USD account
USD stands for United States Dollar. Keen on becoming a Facebook shareholder? How about owning Amazon or Tesla shares? Now you can invest in American shares the same way you would local shares on our platform. Here’s how that works:
You transfer funds from your ZAR account to your USD account. This turns your Rands into Dollars. Once your money has been converted, you can invest as you normally would.
Read more about how that process works here.
Your Demo Accounts
Practice makes profit, so we give you R100,000 in a ZAR demo account and $10,000 in a USD account. Think of this as play-play money to help you get a feel for how things work on the platform.