All the bank branches where you can get your Smart ID or passport

Several E-Home Affairs branches in South Africa let banking customers get their smart ID card or passport without having to stand in the winding queues or face the infamous ” system is offline” issue at conventional Department of Home Affairs (DHA) branches.

DA MP Adrian Roos recently revealed the root cause of downtime at Home Affairs branches.

Roos said that only 35 out of 691 Home Affairs branches had backup links, while Home Affairs was the only government department without dual communication links to all its offices.

“This means that if one form of the network goes down, then the system cannot be accessed,” Roos said.

Home Affairs centres in bank branches don’t have this problem.

To use E-Home Affairs, you must register a profile on the website, provide supporting documentation, and make a payment via your bank.

Once this is done, you can make a booking to visit your chosen branch and capture biometrics, such as a photo, your fingerprints, and your signature.

When your smart ID or passport is ready, you will be notified to collect it at the branch.

Six major banks in South Africa offer this service — Absa, FNB, Discovery Bank, Investec Bank,  Nedbank, and Standard Bank.

Capitec has said that it simply doesn’t have room for Home Affairs inside its branches, as they were designed from the beginning to be as compact and efficient as possible. This allows the bank to avoid unnecessary expenses and keep its transaction fees low, it said.

Several banks previously told MyBroadband that many more of their branches would support E-Home Affairs services in 2020.

At the start of last year, 16 branches were offering the service, with plans to add at least 19 more branches between Absa, Nedbank, and Standard Bank in that year alone.

FNB also said it would provide the service at more branches, but did not provide details on how many.

Based on the most recent list of participating banks on the DHA’s website, the Covid-19 pandemic scuppered these plans.

At the time of publication, there were only 25 branches that supported the service, at least ten fewer than the planned 35.

A closer look at these branches also revealed their potential reach was quite limited.

Of the 25 branches, 16 were located in Gauteng, and five of these were concentrated in Sandton.

Capetonians have four branches available, while residents of Port Elizabeth has two options.

There are still no branches that offer the service in the Free State, North West, or Northern Cape, and only one each in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo.

The good news for those far away from any of these branches is that the DHA plans to add a further 43 sites in the near future.

The table below shows the 25 confirmed bank branches that offer smart ID and passport services, with their listed addresses and contact numbers.

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