Good news for Capitec clients who need a new Smart ID
Capitec will soon have 100 branches offering smart ID applications, with a plan to expand the service to 350 locations by the end of the year.
“I was hoping to announce a hundred branches today, but we’re not quite there yet. It’ll be in the next week or two,” Capitec CEO Graham Lee told MyBroadband.
The bank published its annual report for the financial year ended 28 February 2026 on Wednesday, revealing that it had processed 71,000 successful smart ID applications.
Capitec launched its first seven branches supporting its new partnership with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) on 9 March 2026.
That meant the bank had processed 12% to 14% of Home Affairs’ entire quarterly target for smart ID applications of existing green ID book holders.
The Department of Home Affairs recently published its annual performance plan, stating that its annual target was to issue 2.2 million smart ID cards to people who already had an ID document.
Its quarterly targets for this ranged from 506,000 to 572,000. At the same time, Home Affairs wanted to expand the bank branch–based service to first-time applicants.
Its targets for issuing smart ID cards to first-time applicants were 208,000 in the first quarter, followed by 200,000 in the second, 184,000 in the third, and 208,000 again in the fourth quarter.
Overall, Home Affairs said it aimed to issue 800,000 smart IDs to first-time applicants. Capitec CEO Graham Lee confirmed the bank would soon start offering the service to first-time applicants.
“This application process in our branches is an excellent example of the public and private sectors working together brilliantly for the benefit of South Africans,” stated Lee.
In an interview with MyBroadband, Lee explained that their initial rollout was informed by the distance between branches and Home Affairs offices, as well as the need to ensure broad geographic coverage.
“Our starting point was to work with Home Affairs to see where they saw the most pressing needs and a variety of different factors were taken into account,” Lee said.
“These included distance from Home Affairs offices, particularly the modernised offices with live capture capability needed to issue smart IDs.”
Lee said they wanted to ensure that the service was broadly spread across different client types, needs, and all provinces.
Now that the goal of expanding smart ID services in all provinces has been met, Lee said they will follow customer demand to decide which branches need smart ID services next.
“It’s in every single province now, and we’re seeing demand. We’re very responsive, so we will see where the most demand is and roll out future branches there,” stated Lee.
“So very much, this is client-driven from this point on, while ensuring that it’s broadly spaced in terms of geography and broadly available.”
Capitec’s big boost to Home Affairs smart ID targets
Capitec’s rapid rollout of walk-in smart ID services could help Home Affairs accelerate its plan to invalidate the green ID book, which has become a vector for fraud in recent years.
South Africa’s largest bank by customers was one of the first two that signed up to the department’s digital partnership model for smart ID card and passport services in August 2025.
MyBroadband analysed Capitec’s distribution of smart ID–enabled branches in mid-April, when it had 76 branches online.
Capitec alone had more than doubled the number of bank branches that supported smart ID card applications. Standard Bank and FNB had also brought new branches online, further expanding the network.
Under the old eHomeAffairs pilot programme, which has operated since 2016, the number of supported branches peaked at 32, with no facilities in the North West or Free State.
The following table compares the proportions of eHomeAffairs branches and Capitec smart ID branches across the nine provinces with a provincial breakdown of the South African population.
| Province | eHomeAffairs branch proportion | Capitec smart ID branch proportion | SA population in province |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gauteng | 56.7% | 23.6% | 25.3% |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 10% | 18.4% | 19.5% |
| Western Cape | 16.7% | 18.4%* | 12% |
| Eastern Cape | 6.7% | 10.5% | 11.4% |
| Limpopo | 3.3% | 9.2% | 10.2% |
| Mpumalanga | 3.3% | 5.3% | 8% |
| North West | 0% | 6.6% | 6.6% |
| Free State | 0% | 6.6% | 4.8% |
| Northern Cape | 3.3% | 1.3% | 2.2% |
| * Capitec is headquartered in the Western Cape | |||
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