Government30.09.2015

How to get your Smart ID at banks

By Jan Vermeulen

The Department of Home Affairs launched its Smart ID pilot programme with FNB and Standard Bank on 30 September.

Employees of the banks will be able to get their new Smart IDs at special Home Affairs facilities set up inside the branches.

Smart ID services from the banks will open to the public once Home Affairs is satisfied everything is working as it should.

To get your Smart ID from a bank, you have to be a customer of that bank.

Home Affairs has signed memoranda of understanding with ABSA, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank for the pilot, which will expand to ABSA and Nedbank as soon as technical issues around the launch are ironed out.

Smart ID application process and cost

A Smart ID costs the same as the old ID book. Your first one is free, and a reissue is priced at R140. Everyone trading in their ID book for an ID card will have to pay R140, though.

The next phase of the pilot project will kick off in November, and will test the first step of the Smart ID application process: the e-channel portal.

Bank employees will begin their application online, make the necessary payment, and then continue their application at the designated branch where their photo and fingerprints will be taken.

Home Affairs conducted launch events attended by Minister Malusi Gigaba at Standard Bank and FNB’s offices in Johannesburg to demonstrate how the system will work.

There are no paper application forms, it said, and applications are processed on the spot.

Home Affairs will send you an SMS a few days later to notify you that your card is ready, and you will have to return to the bank branch to pick it up.

FNB said it will roll out the Smart ID application service at branches nationwide in the coming months.

The photos below are from the events held at the offices of Standard Bank and FNB in Johannesburg.