I got a new passport in a week, thanks to eHomeAffairs

There's another massive problem which the article doesn't address --- why on earth do you have to pay for the service from the same bank as the bank with which you booked the appointment? It makes no sense at all. For example, if you book an appointment at a Standard Bank branch, you can only pay via a Standard Bank account. When the service was just launched in 2016 I was able to book an appointment at a Standard Bank branch and pay from my FNB Cheque account, and then for some reason they disabled that ability.
 
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I went through the exact same process through the banks. This is my finding...

1. In my town there is not a single bank that offers this service and therefore had to travel about 25km to another town that does.,

2. Two trips were needed. The first after I applied online. And the second when I collected. On both occassions biometric security were needed.

3. It took 4 weeks since applying for my ID to be delivered to the bank.

But, I have to give credit to Home Affairs too. Last year my kids applied for passport renewals. Also done online. Went to Home Affairs the following morning. All school kids had their own queues. We waited an hour and biometrics were done (only for my eldest kid). 4 days later we received an SMS that the passports were ready. Took another visit and queued in a collections qeue. Took me 20 minutes and we were out.
 
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We used the process for our son last year and it was great, my mother has just done it as well but could only get an appointment in Jhb and I will need to do this soon as my SA passport expires in a few months.
 
Neuk_ said:
We used the process for our son last year and it was great, my mother has just done it as well but could only get an appointment in Jhb and I will need to do this soon as my SA passport expires in a few months.
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Don't both parents have to be present with the child when applying for a child passport?
 
When I made my appointment I was very impressed to see that they work on public holidays. Perfect for me, so I don't have to take time off from work.

I was much less impressed to arrive at a very closed bank.
 
deweyzeph said:
Don't both parents have to be present with the child when applying for a child passport?
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They took both parents biometrics last year when we applied. With collection, only my wife went.
 
R13... said:
Do you need to be a client of a particular bank to be able to do biometrics at a bank branch?
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No. I bank with FNB, but we went with Nedbank, as it was closer. The alternative was an almost 70KM drive to Pretoria if we wanted to use FNB.
 
gregmcc said:
Try getting a passport renewed at London SA high commission. It's been out of action for over a year.
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Can you renew a passport a year early? I’d like to avoid the above sort of situation.
 
this time around the system was slow, cumbersome, and glitchy.
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^ True, lots of patience required.

I did mine during their brief opening in the first half of December. Opened a SB account exclusively for this purpose. Mine too was ready for collection after 7 days. Except when I went to collect the DHA office in SB (25km away) was offline. If offline you cannot collect as they use biometrics for collection. They have no phone number to call to check if that mini branch is working. Second time I got lucky it was online and I collected.
 
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