FNB added the new iPad Air’s to its Smart Devices offering this morning with pricing that seemed a little out of sorts to anyone who has a calculator. If you take the monthly cost of any of the devices through FNB and multiply them by the 24 monthly repayments you find that the prices are above the retail price offered in the iStore. FNB has said that the offer is there to “Bringing (sic) FNB Account holders the latest tech at below retail prices.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a pricing disparity like this from FNB. When the iPhone 5s and 5c were launched last month we noted that the FNB pricing was higher than the retail pricing as well.

When contacted for response, Kartik Mistry, Head of Smart Devices at FNB’s Core Banking Solutions said.

The iPad Air price point you see includes Device + cover + portable Bluetooth speaker + R100 iStore Voucher. This bundle amounts to discount of up to 4% off retail pricing. The additional value adds are worth more than R900.

We are currently updating our information online to ensure our customers are able to make an informed retail decision.

We did some checking into the which cover and speaker they are offering and we found out that it’s the Griffin Slim Folio and the speaker is the QDOS Q-BOPZ which are available from local retailer Shop and Ship for R389 and R299 each. That means that the total value add of the bundle is R788 including the R100 voucher and not the R900 claimed by FNB.

The bundled iPads and accessories do still make it a discount over the retail price as you can see in the table below, though the discount is only R11 for the 64GB iPad Air Wi-Fi + Cellular and that in turn does not take into account the money you save with 24 month interest free repayments.