Bank account: All the banks offer account for children but it depends what you are trying to achieve. If you want to give your teenager a bank account to teach them how to manage their money, these accounts are good options. Alternatively open an account with Capitec or FNB EasyPlan in your child’s name. Both these accounts that offer high interest rates and low costs and you can open the accounts in your child’s name.

However if you are looking for a purely savings account with a high interest rate just open a regular savings account for them like a 32 day fixed deposit as the interest rates are good and there are no monthly fees

Long-term savings: There is little that beats the Satrix range of investments for a no fuss, low cost, long term investment for children or grandchildren as you can invest for R300 a month. My personal favourite is Satrix RAFI (it tracks the performance of the top companies in South Africa based on their relative valuation).

If you want to save less than R300 a month unit trusts offered through the banks (FNB, Stanlib, Absa) do have lower minimum debit orders of around R100 – R200, but the initial fees are high. You could invest in these and accept that the first 5% goes to fees, so you will only see real returns the following year. Alternatively you could save the money in a bank account and transfer R1000 at a time into an investment like Satrix. Www.etfsa.co.za is a good site to find out more about Satrix and other exchange traded funds.

Saving for tertiary education: If your goal is to save for your child’s tertiary education, then the Fundisa fund is by far your very best option.  This is a joint initiative between Government and the unit trust industry. Government tops up your annual savings by 25% up to a maximum of R600 per year. This means you are guaranteed a 25% return before even the returns in the underlying investment which is in fixed interest (cash and bonds). There is no other product in the market that can guarantee these returns. Because the bonus is capped at R600, the optimal monthly investment is up to R200 per month and the minimum is R40 per month. However she will only be able to use the funds for her tertiary education and not her “gap” year. For further information you can go to the website www.asisa.co.za/fundisa. Note that the website fundisa.co.za is NOT related to this product.