FNB eBucks at Pick n Pay vs Standard Bank UCount at Shoprite
Standard Bank customers can earn more UCount loyalty points from their purchases at Shoprite Checkers than the eBucks that FNB customers will receive from the same purchases.
However, earning the maximum potential UCount points is likely to be more difficult on Standard Bank’s programme.
Standard Bank and Shoprite Checkers announced their UCount partnership in February 2025, with up to 30% back in rewards points in-store and 40% when shopping on Sixty60.
At the same time, FNB announced it would no longer offer eBucks rewards for shopping at Checkers from April 2025.
The announcement disappointed many FNB customers who had become accustomed to using Checkers stores to earn eBucks, especially as that arrangement had been in place since 2013.
On the upside for FNB customers, the bank announced it would expand its eBucks partnership with Pick n Pay beyond private banking customers to Aspire and Premier account holders.
FNB is offering up to 20% eBucks back when shopping in-store at Pick n Pay and a 30% return when using Pick n Pay Asap.
MyBroadband compared the two grocery rewards schemes to see which offered the best earnings when considering earn rate percentages vary based on customer levels.
Standard Bank’s offer is available to all customers with qualifying personal credit, cheque, or debit cards.
However, earn rates are low when using debit or cheque cards — varying between 0.5% and 5.0%.
The best UCount earn rates are on credit cards, which come with an extra monthly fee, where UCount returns can vary between 3% and 40% of the basket value.
FNB offers some eBucks Rewards on its lower-end products like Aspire, but the Levelling System with optimal rewards rates is only available on Premier, Private Clients, and Private Wealth products.
The most widely adopted product is Premier, so we used this to compare with Standard Bank’s programme.
FNB does not require customers to pay with a credit card at Pick n Pay, but they must use a virtual card to benefit from the best eBucks earning rates.
If a customer uses their physical FNB card, the maximum eBucks earn will be 0.25% of the basket value, both in store and online.
When using a virtual card, reward rates vary from 2% to 30%.
Near clean sweep for Standard Bank
Whichever partnership you plan to use, the best earnings will be from online purchases using the retailers’ respective on-demand delivery services.
Assuming customers from either bank were on the same reward level, Standard Bank offered a higher UCount Reward rate at Shoprite and Checkers than FNB did for eBucks at Pick n Pay in nearly all cases.
The only exception was for online shopping at UCount Tier 3, which has an 8% return compared to the FNB eBucks Level 3 return of 10%.
It is important to emphasise that Standard Bank customers who wish to earn greater than 20% UCount returns must ensure they select groceries as their Choose Your Own Rewards (CYOR) category.
That will extend the maximum UCount earnings per month from Checkers to R3,000.
The earning rates of the two partnerships are summarised in the tables below.
Online/on-demand shopping
| Reward Level/Tier | FNB eBucks at Pick n Pay Asap! with virtual card | Standard Bank UCount on Checkers and Shoprite Sixty60 with credit card |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2% | 4% |
| 2 | 5% | 6% |
| 3 | 10% | 8% |
| 4 | 15% | 20% |
| 5 | 30% | 40% |
| Maximum return | R3,000 | Lower of 20% of total spend or R3,000 on the chosen Choose Your Own Rewards category. |
In-store
| Reward Level/Tier | FNB eBucks at Pick n Pay with virtual card | Standard Bank UCount on Checkers and Shoprite Sixty60 with credit card |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.5% | 3% |
| 2 | 3% | 4% |
| 3 | 6% | 6% |
| 4 | 10% | 15% |
| 5 | 20% | 30% |
| Maximum return | R3,000 | Lower of 20% of total spend or R3,000 on the chosen Choose Your Own Rewards category. |
Where FNB wins
Although Standard Bank wins with the highest earnings rate at nearly all reward levels, this is not the full picture.
While FNB has often been criticised for regularly changing and complicating its eBucks rules, the rewards programme offers many fairly simple and free ways to level up.
A lot of the eBucks levelling criteria are based on transactional behaviour that is beneficial to the customer and convenient to use — such as paying with a virtual card through a digital wallet.
Other levelling requirements are fairly mundane and early, requiring less than five minutes in the app every month without spending anything extra.
This means it is relatively easy to move up to eBucks Level 4. Level 5 is more likely to require having a product like a home loan, vehicle loan, or savings plan.
Using the Standard Bank Tier Estimator, we found that the top tier we could reach without such products was Tier 3.
This also required much higher deposit amounts and customer-initiated transaction numbers than FNB’s criteria.
That being said, those customers who already have a home loan or vehicle loan with Standard Bank may find it entirely possible to go up to Tier 4 or Tier 5.
The table below compares some of the easiest criteria FNB eBucks and Standard Bank UCount users can meet to move up levels/tiers.
| FNB eBucks | Standard Bank UCount | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criteria | Points | Criteria | Points | |
| View the Track My Rewards tab on the FNB app | 1,000 | Have at least one goal marked as Achieved and Unclaimed through goals and gains in the UCount Rewards app platform in the Standard Bank app | 50 | |
| Have a minimum salary of R16,500 paid into your account or do at least 10 debit transactions monthly | 2,000 | Set up and pay bills with debit orders and deposit R63,000 or more monthly | 125 | |
| Use a virtual card for 80% of online and in-store spend | 3,000 | Have 90%+ more of your total monthly qualifying spend on your credit/Evolve card instead of debit/cheque cards | 125 | |
| Set up three budget categories and access them every month plus view your Credit Status or Nav>Money on the FNB app | 1,000 | Keep an average monthly balance of R50,000 or more in your transactional bank account | 125 | |
| Transact six times via the FNB app (includes in-person third-party digital wallet transactions) | 500 | Use the Standard Bank app, Internet, and or cellphone for 25 customer-initiated transactions | 100 | |
| Make three real-time payments in a month | 1,000 | Load a qualifying credit/Evolve card for payment on three qualifying streaming services | 75 | |
| Have an FNB Fusion account with a credit limit and active card or a credit card | 1,000 | Give Standard Bank consent to send internal marketing material | 100 | |
| Total points out of minimum for top level/tier | 9,500/11,000 | 700/875 | ||
| Qualifying UCount Tier/eBucks Level | 4 | 3 | ||
| Grocery earn online | 10% | 6% | ||
| Grocery earn in store | 15% | 8% | ||
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