Johannesburg: AfricUpdate – News Desk
Capitec Bank and First National Bank (FNB) have signed up to the Department of Home Affairs’ new digital partnership model that aims to expand access to Smart ID and passport services. The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, announced that the partnership will see the expansion of Smart ID and passport services from the existing 30 to hundreds more bank branches in urban and rural areas across South Africa. It will further expand these services to digital banking applications.
“In fulfilment of the target set by Cabinet in the Medium-Term Development Plan, which tasks Home Affairs with expanding its services to 1 000 bank branches by 2029, the Director-General of the department, Mr Tommy Makhode, on 30 April 2025 wrote to
the Chief Executive Officers of ABSA, African Bank, TymeBank, Capitec Bank, Discovery Bank, First National Bank, Investec Bank, Nedbank, and Standard Bank, inviting them to join this transformative, digital-first new phase of the department’s existing collaboration with the banking sector,” explained the department.
It said the collaboration dates back more than a decade and has, until now, seen the successful delivery of Smart ID and passport services at only 30 branches across five different banks. The original model relied on the costly duplication of Home Affairs staff and hardware inside bank branches and failed to take advantage of technology to dramatically expand services into all rural and urban areas where bank branches already exist, as well as onto secure banking apps that have come to be widely used across society.
“The department said the new partnerships marked the beginning of the end for long travelling distances to reach Home Affairs services, for long queues, as well as for the Green ID book with its unacceptable vulnerability to fraud and identity theft. It is also the next step in the new digital-first era of public service delivery that the Government of National Unity is building,” said the department.
The Minister will visit Capitec and FNB this week to provide further information on how this reform will benefit all South Africans. On Tuesday, the Minister will visit Capitec Head Office in Stellenbosch and then on Wednesday he will visit FNB at the Portside Tower, in Cape Town. “The department further reiterates its call for all other banks to similarly take up the invitation to work together, to ensure that all South Africans have access to Smart ID and passport services in their own communities. This reform marks a critical milestone on our journey to unlock the power of digital transformation to deliver Home Affairs @ home.”
