Real problem with smart ID card and passport bank branch rollouts

Several reliable sources close to discussions between Home Affairs and South African banks say the department is to blame for delays in expanding the eHomeAffairs service to more branches.

Launched in 2016, the service allows South Africans to get a smart ID card or renew their passport through a bank branch.

Applicants can fill out all the necessary forms and make payments for their documents online.

They must also choose a time slot for a booking to capture their biometrics and take a new ID card or passport photo.

This approach has proven immensely successful, resulting in much shorter queuing and processing time than at conventional Home Affairs offices.

Regular Home Affairs office visitors must regularly stand in long queues, fill out physical forms, and make payments in person.

These facilities often experience downtime due to slow Internet connections with poor backup capacity.

The bank branches themselves tend to be in a much better state than Home Affairs offices, with plenty of comfortable seating, air conditioning, and free Wi-Fi for visitors.

However, in the past few years, the number of branches offering the service has become stuck at around 30 locations.

The sites are also heavily concentrated in Gauteng, and no locations are available in two provinces.

Furthermore, users must be customers of the particular bank whose branch they wish to use for biometrics and collection of their documents.

This has led to many frustrated MyBroadband readers criticising the banks for not expanding the service.

However, these customers are directing their complaints at the wrong place.

All the participating banks — Absa, Discovery Bank, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank — have repeatedly and emphatically told MyBroadband that they want to expand the service to more branches.

Their initial expansion plans include 34 new branches, which would double the current footprint and make the service available across the country.

Some banks have told MyBroadband they had numerous branches ready to activate the service.

However, the eHomeAffairs collaboration is currently facilitated through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the department and the banks that has been repeatedly extended.

It has effectively remained in a protracted pilot phase lasting over eight years.

All the while, the department has dragged its heels in finalising the public-private partnership (PPP) agreements that would incentivise the banks to expand the service.

Banks gaining little to nothing from the current deal

As it stands, the banks merely provide the space and general facilities that the DHA needs for its employees and computing equipment.

Banking personnel can only assist applicants with queueing and queries about the service.

The banks want their employees to handle the biometrics and photo-capturing process while also maintaining the equipment and Internet connections the service relies on.

This will give them greater control over the quality of the offering and better protect their reputations from being harmed by problems outside their control.

It could also provide an avenue through which the banks could potentially offer customers additional value-added services and banking products.

With bank customers increasingly switching to digital services, it makes sense for the banks to repurpose their branches with new offerings.

The DHA and Banking Association of South Africa (Basa) have been discussing the PPP agreements to enable more bank branches to offer smart ID card and passport renewals since 2021.

The association only became involved after the banks had become frustrated with the lack of progress in negotiating their individual agreements with the department.

Agreements nearing finality — and then nothing

Basa’s prudential head, Mark Brits, recently told MyBroadband that the PPPs were close to being finalised around the end of September 2024.

Several banks subsequently said that lawyers were performing the final checks and balances on the PPPs.

One banking official said the department was expected to make a public announcement on the PPPs before the end of November 2024. That did not happen.

Basa has also failed to respond to our subsequent query about the holdups in the finalisation of the agreements.

Bank officials are not willing to go on record blaming the DHA for the delays as they fear this could threaten a successful outcome to the PPP negotiations.

One bank official told MyBroadband they would no longer respond to our queries about plans for the eHomeAffairs expansion as the ball was fully in the department’s court.

MyBroadband has contacted the department on numerous occasions over the past few years for feedback about the eHomeAffairs expansion but has never received a response.

Recently, we specifically asked the department to respond to allegations that it was behind the delays, but it did not provide a response.

Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber recently said the department was conducting an “internal review” of existing cooperation with the banks “with the goal of deepening and expanding” the successful partnership and introducing new offerings.

Aside from this, there has been no tangible information forthcoming regarding the eHomeAffairs expansion.